


Central City By Way Of Georgia

by GrittyReboot



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Interracial Relationship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2018-07-12 01:54:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 69,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7079872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrittyReboot/pseuds/GrittyReboot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: In the bloody wake of the American Civil War, 1st lieutenant Bartholemew H. Allen returns home to search for his lost love, a union spy turned ghost writer with a traumatic past. Can they reassemble the pieces of their broken lives? Or are there too many years and too many heartaches standing between them now?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The problem with writing historical AU's about interracial couples, a lot of ugly realities to tackle. Here's hoping I can do it right. If I don't then feel free to call me out. This is also the first story in awhile I'm writing partially in the third person (although some of it will be told in letters like the first chapter).

_**Bartholomew H. Allen, 1865** _

Dearest Felicity,

_I know you're going to have a fair amount of questions as to why I must leave here, and the warm hospitality you and Captain Queen have shown me since the end of this brutal war. I am forever grateful to you for providing a place for me to recover, in both body and spirit. Some of the calmest and most contented months of my life were spent on your front porch, reading and feeling the setting sun warming my cheeks. I will miss it dearly. The unfortunate matter is, I can't in good conscience build a home for myself in Starling, the stones and bricks I assemble here in my mind always come crashing down around me and I believe I understand why. It is because of you, in fact, and the love the two of you share. Being in the midst of it reminded me of just how much my heart still yearns for that. I reckon I've always felt this way._  


_I know there are women out there who would have me, a decorated soldier and an educated one at that, surely I can return to Philadelphia to find Miss Patty Spivot and ask for her hand, provided she has yet to find another gentleman. She'd be a fine match for me, we could share a long and comfortable life together. But the more I think on it the less I feel like comfort's what I'm seeking. In the end there's only one I have any intention of living out the rest of my days with. Her memory has haunted me since I left Georgia, since the last time I kissed her and held her tight in my arms. I know I never claimed any such thing, even when you asked. But the truth now, you must know. For the past nine years there's only been one girl (or I suppose I should say woman these days), that I have longed for. She is the same one my heart belonged to for nine whole years before that. It still belongs to her, she never did give it back._

  


_She had about the prettiest set of brown eyes I'd ever seen. Like a hearth fire down to its last crackle, all warm and smoldering. I always liked brown eyes the best, the way they looked like they were full of mystery, depths to plunge into. Mine were green and clear and telegraphed every little feeling. I can imagine she saw it in my eyes that day, how I looked at her that first time over the yellow field with so much curiosity. She was sitting between her mama's ankles and the older woman was humming a pretty song and braiding a woven ribbon into the smaller girl's tightly curled hair. She had a doll that looked scared up from some corn husks and twine, and she was making it dance across her skinny knees. She must have known how I stared, because her eyes met mine not a minute after._

  


_I was there with my momma, we'd rode in from Central City to visit with my uncle Eobard, her brother, a cruel man that she nonetheless loved, albeit more out of obligation than any real fondness. My father downright hated the man, but momma always believed in him, that there was some good inside. So we went, and damn if I don't remember a thing about that first trip aside from Iris._

  
_We only talked once that first visit, after I stole away to find her by the pond, picking flowers with her scabbed and callused hands. She looked at me all wide-eyed like she didn't know quite what to make of me, but I asked for her name anyhow, and she told me in a sweet voice._

_"Iris West."_

_I would have told her what mine was, but I was so mixed up in those eyes, and her wary smile and intricate twist of her hair, I just about forgot my own name._

_"Is there something I can get for you sir?" She said then. I didn't much like that, her calling me sir. And back then I didn't fully grasp why it was needed. She was my same age, I wanted her to call me by my name, the way a friend would, the way someone I might kiss one day would. So I managed to remember long enough to tell her._

_"Bartholomew," I said. "Bartholomew H. Allen. But you can call me Barry if you like."_

_"I'm not s'posed to," she said shyly, looking down at the flowers._

_"Why can't you call me by my name?" I said. She only shrugged, she must not have known either, only that that was the way of things._

_"I won't tell anyone," I said. "I promise."_

_"All right," she said, her eyes meeting mine again, the tiniest suggestion of a smile on her lips. "Barry."_

_I took a step closer and she took a step back. Even as I thrust out my hand for her to take._

_"Nice to meet you Iris West."_

_She took it with some hesitation, looking behind me at the same time like someone might see. Her hand wasn't soft as the rest of her looked. It was hard as a grown man's, with a strong grip. I wanted to hold it for hours._

_"Iris!" I heard a loud voice call, and I turned to see a giant man in the distance, a man with skin as dark as hers, and eyes as full of mystery._

_"That's Daddy," she said. "I gotta go."_

_The second she slipped her hand out of mine I wanted it back, and that's how I kept on feeling for years._

_I didn't ask to fall in love with her, to feel her in my bones even now. I imagine things would be a good deal simpler if she were just a woman, just someone I used to know, and Patty Spivot were the one I dreamt about at night, but nobody ever said life was meant to be simple._

_So I know that you must understand why I need to find her, to put my heart back where it belongs after it's been with her so long. To tell the truth I don't know quite what I'm going to do once I get to where I'm going. I've pictured it a thousand times, her recognizing me in an instant and running at me hard like she's thought about me every single day the way I've thought about her, but I can only hope that she's forgiven me for listening when she told me to leave and never look back. Although I only half-listened really, because while I did leave like she asked, I've been looking back every day since._

_With fondest regards,_

_First Lieutenant Bartholemew Henry Allen._

_P.S. I promise I'll return one day, when my heart's been put back._

**Stay Tuned Folks!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post another chapter after all, just to give you more of a feel for the story I'm trying to tell. Will update my other fic within the week.

**Iris West, 1865**

"So, what do y'all think this story's really about?"

"Miss West, is you s'posed to be talking all country like that?" Sara said. A smattering of laughs sounded from the small crowd, cramped in the moist heat of the room.

"Ain't nothing wrong with sayin' y'all," Iris said. She had an old copy of The Modern Prometheus in one hand and a Chinese style fan in the other. "It's how my momma and daddy raised me, it's good enough for me. Doesn't mean I can't get my head 'round Shelley though. So I'm going to ask _y'all_ again. What do you think it's about?"

Jefferson straightened up in his seat, confident and sure, and cleared his throat once before opening his mouth to answer.

"It's about tryin' to play God, and how damn stupid that is," Wally cut in as he entered the room, thick gloves on his hands and a shovel propped on one shoulder.

"Ay, man nobody asked you," Jefferson said. "You ain't even in this."

"Everyone in the room is free to participate Jefferson," Iris said. "Go on Wally."

"Well, that dumb cracker Frankenstein tried to make life out of nothing, and his monster ended up all sad and isolated 'cause nobody was used to him, they made him an outcast."

"And who's to say Frankenstein was responsible for how society cast out The Creature?" Iris said

"'Cause, he should've known better, society always be rejectin' something they ain't used to." Wally said, shrugging.

"Hmm," Iris hummed, quirking her eyebrows up, impressed. "Very good."

"Well I still say it's worth it," said Jefferson as Wally continued out of the front door.

"Yeah?" Iris said.

"Yeah, I mean he went and did somethin' never been done before. He may have been crazy as a bag of cats but genius need crazy. Imagine once it's years down the line and they worked out everything wrong with the science, they could use it to cure a whole mess of things."

"You boys are going to make me proud, I can tell already," Iris said.

"Well I couldn't get it straightened out any way I looked at it," Said Sara the youngest at seven.

"Well that's all right," Iris said. "We can always read it again next week."

"We ever going to read something new?" Jefferson asked. "This about the third time around for this one."

"Yeah, soon as I can pay for more books," Iris said. They only had three; A Shelley, a Melville and a Hawthorne. They took most to the Shelley, just as she did when she was a girl. It was the same copy, the one she stole from a boy she loved for nine long years. A skinny, kind boy who thought she ought to have it. She swallowed hard as she remembered. She remembered at least a dozen times a day, at random instances. They were memories as clear and sharp as the world before her own eyes. The sound of his voice, the touch of his lips against hers, the sweet, solid comfort of his embrace.

She shook the thoughts out of her head and turned her attention back to the group. There were about ten to fifteen of them at any given time, once or twice it was as many as twenty-five. Men, women and children coming from all around the neighborhood, coming to learn. They couldn't all read and write yet, and the ones who could couldn't do it as well as they wanted, but they could sure as hell listen. And listen they did. Iris supposed it was the best she could do with only three books between them. They passed them around sometimes, sounding out the words aloud, asking what the hard ones said. She could always tell them without going to look at the page, on account of how many times she'd read all three. But they usually liked her to read aloud, let them get lost in the story without stumbling over the words.

They also practiced their spelling on the blackboard, along with their numbers, so that when the new books eventually came, they'd be able to get through them even better. She thought maybe _The Count of Monte Cristo_ would be good to read next. She wondered if Barry had read it again lately. She wondered about him all the time, more than she wanted to. She knew that she'd never see him again, that he was probably married with children on the way, living the simple, happy life he always deserved and never had on the Thawne Plantation, the life he was all too willing to give up to be with her.

It was best, she had managed to make a life for herself that meant something. As much of a struggle as it was sometimes, it made her feel useful to the people who mattered, the good people who'd had too much taken from them, the people like her. She wouldn't trade the life she'd made for anyone, not even him, but she couldn't help wishing that somehow he were part of it.

"Well, that's going to be it for today," Iris said before they could catch wise to her faraway gaze. "I'll see y'all tomorrow."

"See ya tomorrow Miss west," they said in near unison, before shuffling out of their seats and out of the door.

She got up from her seat and watched as they scattered toward their homes, conversing among themselves. The sun had almost fully set, casting their small patch of land in a warm glow that she shut her eyes against.

"Ahem, Miss west," She opened her eyes to the familiar voice and tried her hardest not to sneer at the unwelcome presence of Anthony Woodward, the worst sort of white man. He came around a few times a month with some warning or another that he never followed through on. "You're looking fine this afternoon."

"And you're looking like you always look," Iris said. "Anything I can help you with Mr. Woodward?"

"I just have to take it upon myself to ask again, do you have any sort of license for what you do here? 'Cause as you know, my father's the Sheriff and I'm fixing to follow in his footsteps. It'd be a shame if I had to arrest you on account of running an illegal colored school."

"It's only illegal if I profit from it, I provide my services free of charge."

"And don't you think these folks'd be better off at a real school?"

"Half of 'em are too old Mr. Woodward, other half work during normal schoolin' hours, this is all they got if they want to learn to read and write."

"I say it's a waste of time," Tony said. "You're the only smart colored I ever met, the rest of 'em are dumb as rocks. Every single one of 'em."

It took everything inside her not to angrily order him off of her porch. She hated having to be careful, having to hold her tongue. She told herself that sassing him would be more trouble than it was worth. Central City may not have been Georgia, but it was still America, and it was still a dangerous place to be a loose-lipped negro.

"I do believe I have some chores to attend to, but is there anything more I can do for you Mr. Woodward?" She said, nearly through clenched teeth.

"Why yes in fact," he said. "I was wonderi-

 _"What was you wondering?"_ Iris glanced from Anthony to her father, ascending the porch with his shotgun held at his side. Anthony was a big man, but her father was bigger, and would be a scary sight even without the gun. Joe West didn't need to say anything else, his sheer mass and hard, focused stare was more than enough.

"Nothing at all Mr. West, I was just leaving," Anthony said. Lifting his hat off of his sweaty mop of brown hair before turning to go.

"When is that boy going to leave you be?" Joe said once Anthony was out of earshot.

"As long as he don't have nothin' better to do, never," she said with a sigh.

They entered the house one after the other, and Joe sank into one of the chairs, the weight of a hard day's work still heavy on his shoulders.

"You got a telegram just now," Joe said, reaching into the front pocket of his shirt. "From someone uptown named Wells."

Her heart leapt at the name and she all but snatched the paper her father had produced.

 _To Mr. Ira West._ _I much enjoyed your interpretation of my work. I would like to meet with you to discuss the option of you joining my employ. Please meet me in my Office At The Central City Research University at 9 am. I wish to conduct a proper interview._ _Regards,_  
_Dr. Harrison Wells._  


"Oh my lord," She said excitedly. "I can't believe this." 

"You're getting telegrams from doctors now? When are you going to move me to a mansion so I can rest girl?" He teased, thinly veiled pride on his face.

"Don't go having your little fantasies yet old man," Iris said. "The good doctor ain't ever seen me, he thinks I'm some white man named Ira, the second I walk through the door he'll probably send me right back around."

"Well if he does, he a damn fool," Joe said. He always knew how to make her smile, even now.  
****  
She could feel his eyes burn as he looked at her, then at her writing sample, then again at her. The task was to translate a page of his research notes in a way that anyone who could read would understand. And it was no easy task, she must have read the page at least a dozen times to make sense of it, and that was just the first step, explaining it so others could make sense of it too was something else entirely. Harrison Wells studied the stars and the planets, how they moved, what they might be made of, how they messed with things on earth from so far away. It was fascinating work, and it was work the common man deserved to know about. 

Wells set the page down on his handsome wooden desk, then removed his wire rimmed spectacles, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and set them back.

"You're black," he said.

"Yessir," She said. She tried hard not to fidget, not to tug at the braid on her one good jacket, or fuss with her hat.

"You're a woman," he continued.

"You don't miss a thing," she said, rather shortly, but he didn't seem offended by her tone, if anything he looked apologetic.

"I didn't mean to condescend miss, it's just not every day I come across someone like you. I mean, you wrote this?"

"I'm not lying to you if that's what you're asking, I mean, I did first off when I wrote the name Ira. My name is Iris, I just didn't think you'd look at it if there was a woman's name attached."

"Rather presumptous, but not unwise," he said.

"Look, I can't pretend I'm any kind of science expert, but I do know how to make people understand things, it's what I do all day. And I used to write for The Bellwether for a bit, before the war, and after too, up until the incident," she swallowed hard at the memory. Nobody had gotten hurt in the fire, but it was still a tragedy to see so much progress turned to ash.

"It was a respectable publication, what happened was quite sad. She was thankful that he didn't say it was a respectable publication considering it was founded and run by uppity colored folk. "I vaguely recall reading the name Ira West on a byline or two, I suppose I should have made that connection. I must ask, how is it that you are so educated Miss West?"

"Would you be asking that if I were someone different?" Suddenly the skin on her back began to twinge, it happened every so often, she'd feel the little prickles. It didn't hurt anymore at least, not too bad anyway. It just prickled enough to remind her that she wasn't always getting telegrams from doctors.

"I don't suppose I would," he answered truthfully.

"I had a lot of teachers," she said. "Had them from all over. Some from the day I was born, one for just five minutes on a street corner, all sorts during the war."

"The war? You mentioned that twice now, what exactly was the extent of your involvement?" he said, tenting his fingers with curiosity.

"I'm not at liberty to elaborate on my experiences, sir," she said, which she hoped was enough clue for him that she'd been a spy, which she had for three long and dangerous years, her set of skills proved vital to the brigade. 

"I see," he said. "And who would you say was your biggest teacher?"

She couldn't say that either, they'd all meant something different to her, taught her different things. She couldn't say which one was most important, but her favorite was clear. The boy who'd given her the book. The boy she'd loved for nine years, the boy who would be so proud if he could see her now.

"I can't pick just one," she said. 

"Well, I suppose the why doesn't matter much. The fact is the publisher won't let my research see the light of day, unless I make it accessible to their readers, you have admirably demonstrated your ability to do so. But you realize it will still be my name on the finished book?"

"I figured as much," she said.

"Nobody is going to know that you had anything to do with it."

"As long as I'm paid a fair wage," she said, although she inwardly liked the idea of a book with her name on it, like Mary Shelley, who was a white woman but a woman nonetheless. "To be honest I don't know if I want the sort of attention that'd come with having a book out, I run an unofficial negro school, the kind of place certain people'll burn to the ground if they get certain ideas, just like they did The Bellwether. I want my people to be safe."

Harrison gave her a sympathetic look, likely the most he could do besides give her the job.

"Can you begin Monday morning?" he said.

Barry would be very proud indeed.

**Stay tuned folks!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter while waiting at the DMV with no expectation of finishing it before they called my number. Needless to say, the DMV is evil. But at least I'm updating this faster than I thought I would at first. Also, I hope I didn't totally drop the ball on the last chapter. I like to think I'm not such a huge comment whore that the lack of them makes me uneasy, but I can't fully help wondering if I made some big error. In any case, comments or no comments, I truly appreciate your readership. : )

**Bartholomew H. Allen, 1847**

Nora Allen and Dr. Henry Allen were good people, deeply and unmistakably good. In them was an inherent decency that seemed to evade many other Southern born whites of certain privilege, who prized money and efficiency above all other things. From the day their Bartholomew was born, they strove to impart him with this knowledge of right and wrong. Still, he was such a boy, so unprepared for the reasoning behind the occasional presence of tired and weary travelers at their breakfast table, men, women and children with dark skin, woolly hair and uneasy manners about them, as if their safety could be snatched away at any moment.

Barry never thought much of any of it. Most of their guests were friendly enough, and the boy never hesitated to start up a conversation or offer a bit of extra help, another glass of water here, an extra blanket there. All of his parents attempts to raise him with a sense of fairness and hospitality were hardly lost on him. Perhaps it was in an attempt to preserve that decency, that belief in good, that caused Dr. and Mrs. Allen to hide some of the graver details of the world he lived in, or at least make them feel further away. Barry had heard the stories about men being forced to work from sun up to sundown every day without pay, and the backs being beaten bloody when any objections were presented. But in Barry's eyes it was only the most evil of men who did such things, to him it wasn't a common, lawful practice that his own flesh and blood swore by. It wasn't until he was nine that Nora decided for better or worse, that Barry should meet his uncle, and with that be introduced fully to the ugly realities of his own world.

It came as a surprise then, that the first question on Barry's lips as the carriage departed Thawne Plantation, was one about beauty.

"Do you think Iris is pretty?" Barry said as the large house faded from view.

"Iris?" Nora asked.

"The girl," Barry explained. "With the ribbons in her hair."

Nora and Henry exchanged concerned looks, neither of them knowing just what to say to that. Of course they thought she was pretty, anyone with eyes could see how comely the little girl with the ribbons in her hair was. But how could they tell their boy that the only advantage her beauty would get her was a place working in the house as opposed to the fields once she came of age? Still from sun up to sundown? Still for no pay? How could they tell their boy that one day her beauty might become more of a curse than a blessing should the wrong man notice it? The kind of man who saw her only as property to be used at his leisure? How could they tell their boy that he could never befriend the pretty girl with the ribbons in her hair, let alone anything more?

"Of course," Nora said with an uneasy smile. "She's a beautiful child."

"Truly," Henry agreed. There was no harm in simply agreeing. It wasn't as if they had any immediate plans to return to Thawne plantation, Nora had spent the better part of the trip attempting to educate her brother about the moral failings of his tried and true system, and all of her attempts had fallen on deaf ears. There was little more the Allens could do aside from offering a safe space should a Thawne slave decide to flee to Central City.

"Why couldn't she play ever?" Barry said. He'd only spoken to her that one time by the pond, which he would only later learn was one of the few free moments during the daytime the child was allowed.

"Well, because," Nora said carefully. "There are certain..."

She looked at her husband, hoping he could better answer a seemingly simple but actually impossible question.

"Because your uncle is not a good man," Henry admitted. Nora made no attempt to argue. Over their three day stay, she began to feel the last remaining traces of affection for her brother fade. Gone completely was the boy she used to play tag with in the fields. Left behind was a hopeless man, lost to drink and greed. Nora had her own family, there could be no use anymore for her old one, not if they couldn't manage something as simple as empathy for their fellow man.

"Is Iris like those people who come to stay with us?" Barry said, a heartbreaking bit of hopefulness in his tone, that maybe life wasn't so unfair that a potential friend was forbidden to him for a cruel reason.

"I'm afraid she is son," Henry said.

Nora could have sworn at that moment there were tears threatening to escape her son's eyes.

"We have to go back," Barry said, frantically turning in his seat to look out the back window, the Plantation was just a white speck in the distance. "We can't leave her there, you know what they do--"

"Bartholomew, son," Henry started.

"No!" Barry cried. "You know what they do, that man, that man who stayed with us before, they hurt him with a whip. They hit him 'till he almost died."

"Son, we can't take that girl from her family," Nora said. 

"We can take them all, why can't we? We always do, we always help when they need it," Barry said, growing more upset by the minute.

"When they come to us, we can't take them from Thawne's land, there are laws," Henry said.

"Forget about laws!" Barry was full on bawling at that point, he didn't even understand why. He had only known the girl a moment. But there was something about her that stuck and wouldn't let go, something he knew that he wouldn't be able to forget no matter what. And she was just so young, far younger than any of the children his parents provided shelter to, younger than himself even, she couldn't have been more than seven or eight. The thought of her living that way made him feel sick. They needed to turn the carriage around, they needed to help that girl, how could they go back to Central City knowing that they'd left her there?

"Please," Barry said. "We can't leave her, she's just a little girl, it's not right."

"No son, it isn't" Henry said, he got up from his seat across from his wife and son, and went to sit next to Barry, putting his arm around the boy.

"She was nice," Barry said. "She smiled at me. Why would anyone treat her like that?"

"You have such a good heart Barry," Nora said, she pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "If everyone were more like you, that girl could have the life she deserves, but not everybody is, in fact, most people aren't. They don't see things as you do."

Barry wiped his eyes and hiccupped wetly. He'd been so happy to meet a friend, if only for a moment. He didn't have many at home. To the other children he was bookish, awkward and small for his age. He didn't fare well at sport or other such amusements. And he had a habit of getting far too emotional in certain situations. Iris didn't see any of those things, Iris was kind, Iris was beautiful. 

Iris was a prisoner.

"Can we go back?" Barry said, after taking some time to calm himself. "Just to visit?"

"I suppose," Nora said, although she wasn't sure how true that was. "One day."

 _One day_ , those were the last words he would ever hear his mother say. 

****  
Barry had been fast asleep on Nora's shoulder when the clouds rolled in, he was exhausted by the weight of information he'd been dealt. He'd slept through all of it, the axle breaking in two on the fallen rock, the tilt of the carriage, the skidding across the wet dirt road, the screams, the crash. Although the whole thing had probably taken less than a minute.

He woke to the feel of rain beating down on him. All he could see as he opened his eyes were the nearly black clouds, swollen and heavy with rain. He could hear the horses whinnying in what sounded like distress, and the pounding of feet on the wet road. He tasted salty blood from a bit tongue, and his head hurt. In fact his whole body hurt aside from the right leg, which he couldn't feel at all.

"Momma! Poppa!" He yelled, his voice rusty.

A man appeared looking down at him, someone he didn't know. A man with a kind, heavily bearded face. 

"Don't you worry boy," the man said. "We're going to get you to safety right quick, get that leg set before you even know it."

"Where's my momma and poppa?" Barry cried. He didn't want to turn his head, didn't want to look away from the man, he was afraid of what he might see if he did.

"Don't you worry yourself about all that," the man said. "We're going to get you well all right?"

Barry did worry, and even more after being told not to, but he said nothing more as the man gathered him into his arms.

The harness had broken right in the nick of time, freeing Ophelia and Lighting not a second before the carriage took its deadly tumble. He'd get to keep the horses, as well as his clothes and books. The rest would go to auction. And Barry, as well as his things, would go to his closest living relative. Henry and Nora hadn't left a will. But of course they wouldn't have. They were in their mid thirties and healthy, and nobody spent their days worried over the possibility of fatal carriage accidents, not when there were wrongs to be righted in the world. If they had left a will, they would have insisted that Barry go to anyone apart from Eobard Thawne.

As he arrived for the second time at Thawne Plantation, Barry held the book tightly to his chest, Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein,_ the last book his Mother had given him before the accident. He'd read it over and over again while his leg healed at the hospital, even as his tears blurred the words. He spent his days reading from cover to cover, then starting again. It was like a lifeline, the only thing he had left to cling to in his new life, thrust on him as suddenly as that carriage had crashed. It was night by the time they made it there. Eobard stood at the fence with a lantern hoisted up, his face was as free of emotion as it had been at the funeral.

"You made it," Eobard said, no warmth, or even sympathy present in his tone. "I'll show you to where you'll be staying."

The Thawne plantation had plenty of rooms, most of them for renting out to travelers. All of them were plenty spacious, especially for a boy Barry's age, which was why it was a more than a little surprising to be led through the back door and across the field to the shed near the pond. Inside it was set up with a small bed in the corner, a shelf for his books and shoes, and a flimsy line on which to hang his clothes. there was barely enough room to walk around in.

"You want me to sleep in here?" Barry asked in a small voice.

"It'll be good for you," Eobard said. "Lots of privacy, a boy your age needs privacy. Plus it's quiet, there's always all sorts of commotion going on in the house. No place to read and do what you do."

Barry didn't believe that, he'd stayed in the house for three days and found it no noisier than his own home. He knew the real reason, his uncle didn't want things changing anymore than they already had.

"And you know you're expected to pull your weight around here," Thawne said. "It's an awful burden on me taking you in like this, surely you don't mean to add to that?"

"No sir," Barry said quietly.

"Well we have an understanding then," Thawne said. "Get yourself settled in, we have some things that need discussing in the morning."

The lantern and a halfhearted pat on the shoulder was all that Thawne left him with before he shut the shed door behind him with a loud clang, making Barry jump. Even with the lantern it felt dark, and lonely. He wanted his mother, and his father. He wanted to be home where it was safe, not with the sort of man who would keep a nice girl as his property. He thought about running, about going back home and staying there no matter what anyone said. But he couldn't run away, all he could do was curl up on the thin mattress, clutch the book to himself and cry himself to sleep.

When the morning came he expected to feel different, maybe sadder, maybe somehow less sad, but different all the same. He didn't feel different at all. He wondered if he ever would, whether it would somehow get easier. His parents were gone, he would never see them again. He would never hear his mother's voice again as she read to him, he would never get to smooth his hair back down in mock-embarrassment after his father playfully mussed it, he would never get a new book inscribed with lovely words from either of them. They were simply gone.

He breathed in and out over and over to keep the tears from spilling out. He didn't want his uncle to see him cry as he went for breakfast. After changing his clothes and setting his book on the shelf, he opened the door to his shed. But before he could take another step he noticed something set near the door.  
It was a doll, like the one Iris had been playing with before, only that had been a girl doll. The one he picked up now was a boy, its limbs bound in twine to look like pants and a shirt instead of a dress. It had smile drawn on in charcoal and five letters written across the back.

FR BRY

_for Barry_

She'd made him a gift, and once again he wanted to cry.

**Stay tuned folks!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I will explain why Iris already has some (extremely basic) writing ability already. I know that wasn't often the case for them back then. Also, hope you got the significance of the horse's names. They will also figure more into the story.


	4. Chapter 4

**Georgia, 1865**

His back was sore, his crotch was sore, and he could have sworn the gunshot wound in his shoulder found a way to open up again. Even though it had been healed for some time, it hurt like it was brand new. Riding past the steep hill his parents’ carriage had tumbled down all those years ago made his heart hurt too. He took a break there to eat the last bits of Johnny cake and dried beef in his pack, and half of what was left of his water, but the need to stop again was quickly mounting. He needed real food and good rest. Except he couldn’t rest, he was so close, too close. 

Thawne Plantation was only 20 miles out. He was twenty miles away from the last place he’d been with Iris. He knew she wasn’t there anymore, or at least he prayed to God that she wasn’t, that she hadn’t been one of the unlucky many pulled back into slavery for committing, or more likely being framed for some minor crime. A negro journalist named Scott Evans had written a very enlightening pamphlet about the unfair policies that continued after the end of the war, the ones that kept supposedly free men in chains. It was said that the uproar over the pamphlet had led to the burning of the Central City Bellwether, the paper Evans founded in 1859. Barry knew from reading Evans’ pamphlet that there was a chance winning the war hadn’t freed Iris, the main thing Barry had set out to do when he enlisted after college. He’d joined right on the heels of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and against the wishes of his professors, potential employers, and Patty.

He'd met Patty Spivot in his second year at The University of Pennsylvania, after he’d fetched a page from her book that had been carried away by the wind. It was _The Voyage of the Beagle_ , a book he’d never read but seemed incredibly interesting from her enthusiastic description. They had many things in common, and spent much of their time together after their first meeting. He supposed he had courted her, at least as far as their mutual friends were concerned. But his heart was never particularly in it, not in the romantic sense. She was lovely, with shiny blonde hair and a charming smile. He enjoyed her company, and found their conversations together about science and literature intellectually stimulating. Perhaps if things had been different he could have loved her, but his feelings for her, and her protests about his intention to enlist weren’t ultimately enough to keep him from the war.

It wasn’t politics-- she was in favor of abolition. And it wasn’t fear-- she knew that if he were to perish in battle, it would be for a cause he believed in. She protested because she knew deep down that if he left Philadelphia, he’d never return. 

Before leaving Captain Queen’s home, he’d written Patty a letter, 18 pages in length, explaining why she was correct in believing he’d leave for good.  
He knew that she would understand his deep feelings for Iris, how they never truly went away, or even faded. He knew that Patty would reconcile the distance he always kept from her with his hidden desire for another, another that he was forbidden to love but loved all the same, with a passion that bordered on madness. Patty was a romantic at heart, she would understand.

He had to keep going, as far and as fast as he could. Ophelia was far hardier than he was at the moment, she was easily capable of going another 20 miles, perhaps another forty, even at her advanced age. Barry gripped the reins hard, and bit down on his lip, urging himself forward. He didn’t know what he expected from going, only that he needed to find Iris, and all he had to go on was that she’d lived at Thawne Plantation last. 

The last time he’d spoken to his uncle, he’d warned Barry that he’d be killed if he ever returned. Somehow he didn’t worry much about that anymore. If Thawne still hoped to kill him after so long, he was probably even more insane than Barry remembered. There was also the matter of Barry’s gun, loaded and hanging dutifully at his side. And on account of Captain Queen’s training, he was more than capable of using it, even in his exhausted state, even with his bum shoulder. If Thawne hoped to kill him, Barry wouldn’t make it easy on him.

As the sun began to touch down in the horizon, Barry arrived at his old home, a place full of awful memories as well as happy ones, memories of her. He got down off of Ophelia with some struggle, and stretched himself out, hearing the tiny cracks in his joints that brought him mild relief. He left Ophelia with a sugar cube and a pat along her soft mane and tied her to the fence before venturing toward the doors of the large house. It was far less grand than he remembered, the paint seemed duller, the grass out front overgrown, somehow it even seemed a bit smaller than he left it. It wasn’t an unusual sight along his journey, the war had hit hard everywhere, especially in the south, even those who hadn’t fired a single shot felt the affects of it. It was more than worth it though, for them to be free, even if it wasn’t without complications, it was never going to be without complications.

It was eerily quiet, in a way he didn’t recognize, and he wondered for a moment if anyone still lived there. He knocked on the door and waited, his free hand firmly on the gun.

  


He could almost smell the alcohol before Thawne even answered the door. He looked like hell, pure, straight hell. His eyes were bleary and bloodshot, his hair disheveled, his shirt stained. A bottle of whisky was clutched in one hand, it was as if he’d done nothing but drink since he last saw him, drowning the remaining shreds of the immense intellect his mother always claimed Thawne had as a boy. Barry’s hand left the gun after a few moments passed. Thawne didn’t look angry, or vengeful, he didn’t even seem to recognize him. 

“Uncle Eobard,” Barry said, his voice even and free of any discernible emotion.

“You again,” Thawne said, he took a long swig next, barely managing to keep the liquor in his mouth. A few silent moments passed, only the distant cry of some bird of prey interrupting it, the place would likely be surrounded by crows soon. “So, you just gonna stand there or are you coming in?”

Barry hesitated for just a second when Thawne stepped aside, holding the door open. When he finally walked in he barely recognized the place. It used to be something of an institution, a beautiful refuge off the beaten path. Now it was in complete shambles, dusty and unkempt, wallpaper peeling, upholstery stained, a stench of liquor in the air. Iris was gone, they were all gone, there was no question of it. Barry couldn’t believe how far things had fallen, but he supposed the state of things had more to do with Thawne’s depression and alcoholism than the lack of free help in the last five months, he may have torn the wallpaper himself in a fit. 

They sat across from each other in the foyer, staring each other down like two strangers who knew each other very well.

“What the hell are you doing back here anyhow?” Thawne said. “Don’t tell me you came looking for that nig—

“Don’t,” Barry said firmly, angrily.

Thawne smirked and took another long swig.

“You know you really ought to ease up on that,” Barry said. “You’re gonna wind up killing yourself.”

“I can only hope,” Thawne said. “Damn world’s coming to an end, and for what?”

Barry wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an answer, it wasn’t what he came for.

“I’m not gonna kill you if that’s what you’re wondering,” Thawne said. “Don’t really see the point anymore.”

There was a time Barry wanted to kill Thawne too, and nearly did, after he ordered Hunter to shred her beautiful skin with his whip, making Barry watch every excruciating minute. He fully expected that rage from so many years ago to remain, but seeing the shell of a man Thawne was now, all he felt was pity. He wasn't worth the effort of an execution, he was nothing. He was always nothing. There was no point in trying to kill nothing.

“I want to see it,” Barry said. “The quarters.”

“Knock yourself out,” said Thawne. “But if you think that little bitch of yours left something behind for you, you’re even more blind than I remember. Those people don’t know what love is, it’s wasted on them.”

He took another long swig, and Barry shook his head. Nothing, he was nothing

“I’m losing the house," Thawne said. Barry figured as much. "It’s been in the family for years, but that doesn’t concern you much does it? You got those shiny medals and that fancy gun, probably think you’re some kinda hero, huh?”

“I’m no hero,” Barry said. “I’m just a man looking for a woman.”

“You didn’t free her you know,” Thawne said. Barry wondered what he meant by that, was she on someone else's farm now? Condemned by the inhuman laws that still kept so many prisoner? “She ran off a little after you did, her whole family and that Diggle sonofabitch too, they poisoned me and Hunter, and they ran, they stole three horses, including yours. Does that sound like a woman who gives a shit about anything but her own neck?”

 _She ran, she got herself out. That’s my girl,_ Barry thought to himself. And if she left shortly after he did, and nothing went wrong, she would have been free for nine years. What must she have seen in those nine years? What must she have done? She was always so smart, so curious. If it weren’t for the circumstances of her color and gender, she could have done anything. He remembered the way she used to make up stories, about the people in their books that she didn’t get to learn enough about. She was especially interested in the character of Jacobo in _The Count of Monte Cristo,_ she liked to think about the adventures he must have had after Edmond Dantes gave him his own ship. She used to imagine the kind she would have herself if she were free. Now she was, and all Barry could do was beam on the inside thinking of it. Maybe she did end up having a few of those adventures, of course she could just as easily have struggled endlessly for the last nine years, but he chose not to think too hard about that possibility.

“I'm going,” Barry said again, and he got up to exit through the back door. He didn’t care about the house, it never felt like it belonged to his family, his mother had denounced any connection to it years before she died. He felt nothing for it. All he cared about was Iris. 

If she left something for him, it was in one of three places. The first was her quarters, a tiny one room shack where she slept with the three other members of her family. The four pallets were still there, uncomfortable, itchy looking things filled with corn husks. A table and two chairs sat in the middle. He swallowed hard as he walked up to the long slim table. It was still stained with her blood, he ran his finger along the stain and tried to hold back the tears. That was a horrible night, the first and last time he’d set foot inside of her home. Now it felt haunted, brimming with her energy, stained with her blood. If he listened closely enough he could almost hear her cries. His strong and beautiful Iris, reduced to blood and tears by an evil man, a man he wanted to kill but didn’t. He tried to think of something else, tried to think of her free.

He found the loose floorboard that he’d tripped over that night and pulled it up. There was nothing there, just dust and bad memories. He shouldn’t have gone in there.  
He went to his own shed next, across the field, by the pond. It was empty. The bookshelf was empty. He’d left her three; a Hawthorne, a Melville and a Shelley. He’d kept the Dumas because she insisted. He wanted her to have _Frankenstein,_ his favorite, and she wanted him to keep _The Count of Monte Cristo,_ her favorite, so he did, and read it at least once a year, hoping that maybe she'd read Frankenstein again and again too.

He checked the tree next, the tree they met under when it was too hot in the shed to kiss and touch and make love. He reached into the hollowed out trunk, and pulled out a wooden box. Inside was her doll, worn and tattered with age. Under the skirt was the note he knew she’d leave for him. He couldn’t make out all of the words at first glance, but he could figure the faded ones out through the context of the rest, it could have said nothing at all but _I love you_ and it would have been enough to lift his spirits. He began to read.

_September 29th, 1856_

My Beloved Barry, 

_I’m writing this letter unsure of whether you will ever see it, or even if you will return to this place. You must know that I would hardly blame you for staying far away. There was never anything here for you, there was never anything here for any of us._

_First of all, I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating. What happened to me was not your doing. You must stop blaming yourself. I chose to be with you because I wanted you more than anything in the world. I don't regret my choice, I never will._

_I hope that you are well, and that you learned everything there was to learn in Philadelphia, and met people who only wished you the very best, people who knew inside and out the truly special man that you are and have always been. There was a time that I wished with everything inside of me that I could have those opportunities. I remember you talking about college, and picturing myself there too. I’d see myself in a classroom with a stack of books out in front of me, writing furiously along with the steady rhythm of the teacher’s speeches… sorry, professor’s, I forget they’re called professors in college._

_I may never get to go to college like you, but I have decided that I will not spend the rest of my life here. I will see the world outside of these fences, I will read and write and work hard for things that matter and meet people who are good. I know those people exist because of my father, Wally, mama, and you. You are the best people I know, I want nothing more than to surround myself with the likes of you all._

_I know what I have planned is dangerous, that I might not make it, but what’s the use of living if it has to be like this? There has to be more out there for me, I must have met you for a reason, I must have loved you for a reason too, other than the simple pleasure of loving you. I think I met you so that I could truly know how it felt to hope, and imagine the world beyond the cage I was forced into from the day I was born. I may be a little too optimistic, I know that things will never be easy for people like me, but I would rather struggle for something than struggle for nothing at all, so that’s what I’m going to do._

_If you do get this letter, know that I will think of you every day, I will because you are a part of me now. You are in the air that I breath and the soil I walk on, and I will love you until the day my heart no longer beats, even if I never see you again, although I will pray every day to whoever is listening that we’ll meet once more._

_I remember the stories you used to tell me about Central city, about the library, and the university. I want to go there, live on the quiet outskirts of the town where I can write and look at the sunset from my porch. I’ve always wanted to sit on a porch and know that it’s mine and that nobody can force me off it. If there's one good thing I can take away from my 17 or so years in this God forsaken place, besides you of course, it's the fact that we learned to build things. I think one day I’d like to travel too, like Edmond Dantes. He was a prisoner, like me, but that didn’t stop him, it won’t stop me either, I promise you that._

_I love you Barry Allen. I truly love you, and nothing, not society, or law or the twisted way people use the word of God will stop me loving you._

_With all of my heart,_

_Iris West._

“I love you too,” Barry said, his voice thick with tears, and he pressed his lips to the paper. He was going back to Central City, and he was going to find her.

 

_Stay tuned folks!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to add the tiniest bit of preacher crossover here, nothing that would be confusing to non show watchers/comic readers, but since technically both universes are DC, I thought it would fit just fine.

**Central City, 1865**

****

It was hard work, so hard it made her head hurt sometimes. But she couldn’t deny how much she loved it. She could stay in the university library all night writing. After long enough she didn’t even notice the looks the other students threw her way, those “you shouldn’t be here” looks. She got lost in it, in the stars and planets and infinite combinations of words. She’d loved words her whole life, even when she couldn’t understand what they meant. Now she nearly understood them all.

Even still, Harrison Wells wasn’t always the easiest man to work under, he had a very particular idea for how he wanted his book to read, and it wasn’t unusual for him to march up to her with her finished pages and command they be rewritten. She never complained, and Wells never failed to pay her for all of the work she put in, even that he didn’t end up using, but it was far from easy.

“This is all very entertaining Miss West,” Wells said, setting her pages down, it was her third week on the job, and she’d produced nearly 80 pages in that time, all the while tending to students and housework, she slept little, but knew it would all be worth it when she finished. “But our aim isn’t to entertain, it’s to inform.”

“I hardly see why it can’t be both,” she said.

“They’re going to know this isn’t me, therein lies the problem,” Wells said, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’re not thinking like a scientist.”

“I’m not a scientist,” she said. “I thought that’s why you needed me. Make your work accessible to the public, that was the task.”

“It’s about striking a fair balance,” he explained. “Sir Isaac Newton, Martin Stein, those are the names you must familiarize yourself with.”

He stood up and went for the corner of his small office in two short strides, and picked up a book from the shelf. 

“If you can get the time, I want you to read this,” he said, handing her a thin book, _The Shining Circle_ by Martin Stein. Barry had told her about it when they were young, but she’d never gotten the chance to read it herself. To tell the truth, back then it seemed like a bore, no story, just a bunch of dry facts about the planet. But now she’d be happy to read it, even the smallest thing to make her feel closer to him was enough.

“I can have it?” Iris said with a guarded smile.

“It’s yours,” Wells said. She placed it in her satchel and thanked him.

“You’re doing an exemplary job Miss West,” he said. “Please don’t misunderstand me.”

“I’m not offended Mr. Wells,” she said. “But there has been something on my mind.”

“And what would that be?”

“Why couldn’t you have written this yourself? You certainly seem smart enough.”

She’d avoided asking for some time, thinking it might be uncouth to question his ability so early into their professional relationship. Now it seemed fitting, even necessary.

“It isn’t a matter of intelligence, it’s a matter of connecting with people. That has never been a talent of mine. I sometimes feel my own daughter thinks of me as a stranger.”

The way his piercing blue eyes seemed to darken made her feel suddenly sad for him, and she took a step forward and offered a sympathetic look.

“I apologize, I don’t know what possessed me to say such a thing,” he said. “I must be very tired.”

“I think we probably both are,” she said.

He stretched and scrubbed a hand over his messy hair. “Until tomorrow?” he said.

“Until tomorrow.”

She rode Lightning the four miles home in the burgeoning dark. She loved Lightning, the horse who’d once belonged to Barry. He was a gentle beast, fond of sugar and affectionate rubs. She couldn’t leave him behind all those years ago. Part of her wondered if it was wrong, to take him knowing that Barry may have decided to go back looking for him, but she simply couldn’t leave him behind. When they went to the stables that night it was as if his big brown eyes were right on her, begging her to bring him along, she may have been imagining it, but she took him all the same. She wondered sometimes if Barry missed him. But she wondered far more often if Barry missed her.

When she arrived home, she got down off of the horse and looked up at the stars just emerging in the deep and darkening blue sky. She hoped that Barry was looking up at the same ones.

_“I implore you to look at where you’re standing, then look up. You can be certain that 1,000 years ago someone who came before you stood in that very same spot. They gazed up at the very same stars, the ones that create patterns and tell stories in the sky, the ones that reveal to us our true north and lead us home. They connect us together, even as we stand apart, either hundreds of years or merely hundreds of miles…”_

The sound of Wally’s voice behind her made her smile. She turned to face the boy, reading from her stack of papers as he met her outside.

“This is beautiful Iris,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. “Wells actually liked that part. He didn’t much care for today’s pages though, I’m in for one long day tomorrow.”

“Well, you’ll have all sorts of freedom when you write your own book.”

“Won’t that be something?” She said, although she couldn’t help thinking Wally was more optimistic about that than she’d ever be. She placed a soft hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Let’s go inside.”

She could see why Barry liked Martin Stein so much, the Shining Circle was the perfect example of the balance Wells wanted her to strike. It was as beautifully written as it was scientifically sound. By the time she made it a third of the way through the short book she found herself too tired to carry on. She had a long day ahead, cooking breakfast and tending to the garden in the morning, teaching from _Narrative of The Life Of Frederick Douglass_ in the afternoon, and much writing for Wells at night. 

She blew out the candle next to her bed, and laid on her side, thinking again about Barry. She liked thinking about him most at night. It brought her comfort, made her pleasantly sleepy. Deep down she knew it was time to stop, to start fantasizing about things that were possible. But what was one more night?

**Georgia, 1854**

He had the prettiest green eyes, and lashes so long they’d tickle when he’d go to kiss her. She could still remember the first time he did. It wasn’t good like it was every other time after, at least not completely, there was too much fear behind it, too little knowing just why it happened.

He’d been hit hard in the eye by his uncle the same day, Thawne was always beating on him when he’d had too much to drink. She knew it was strange to feel sorry for Barry, considering how much better he had it than the rest of them. He went to school every day, ate well, and didn’t have to stay if he didn’t want to. She wondered all the time why he stayed, why he didn’t just run off to somewhere better, like she wished like hell she could. But she never asked him. She didn’t ask him because if he did leave, the one good thing she had besides her family, her only friend in the world, would be gone. So as much as she wished he’d leave, she wished just as much for him to stay.

Considering how valuable it was, especially in the south, taking ice was against the many many rules. But Thawne would never notice in his passed out state, and Hunter was in bed ill, so she did it, only the one time, and met Barry at his shed that night. He wouldn’t open the door for her when she knocked, wouldn’t say a word, so she opened it herself to find him curled up in bed, facing the wall. _Frankenstein_ was on the floor, the pages wafting and crinkling in the gentle breeze she brought inside with her. She picked it up, remembering the first time she took a look inside. Most of the words were hieroglyphs to her back then.

“I remember when you took that,” he said, his voice low. “I thought I was losing my mind until you brought it back with all those words circled. I didn’t really know what to make of it Iris, or you really.”

“I thought you’d be mad,” she said, sitting on the corner of his bed. “Instead you just asked me why.”

“You said you wanted to circle the ones you knew,” he said.

“And you just sat there staring at me, and after the longest silence that ever was, you asked me if I wanted to learn the rest,” she said. “I never thought I’d get that chance after Tulip left.”

It had still made Iris sad to think about Tulip, to not know where the first teacher she ever had ended up or if she was even still alive, but she swallowed hard and tried to focus on the moment at hand.

“You were always so much smarter than me, I just got started earlier,” Barry said. His voice was starting to crack and she reached out to touch his shoulder. When he faced her she noticed even in the faint lantern light how much worse it had gotten.

“Sit up now,” she said, and he obeyed, letting her press the kerchief full of tiny ice slivers to his eye, swollen nearly half-closed. He flinched and grunted at the contact. “Shh, it’s all right, I got you.”

His breathing slowed after a bit, she cradled his cheek with one hand and continued to press the ice to his eye with the other.

“Thank you Iris,” he said softly. 

“He shouldn’t put his hands on you like this. You’re a nice boy, I can’t imagine what you must have done to deserve it.”

“I called him a bastard,” Barry said. She was sure he had it coming, but she couldn’t help asking why.

“He said something about my mother, something I don’t want to repeat if you don’t mind.”

“Well good for you Barry,” she said. “If only I could call him half the things I want to. But still, try to watch your tongue from now on, your face is too handsome to get all bruised up like this.

He smiled against the pain in his eye, and she smiled back. It was nice, the silence, the gentle feel of his cheek against her palm. But something in his face changed all of a sudden, it was like he knew something was about to happen and he couldn't stop it, and when he leaned in to press his lips against hers, it went from being nice to confusing far too quickly. She almost didn’t want to pull away, she’d never been kissed before, not like that, not so gently and sweetly. Still, he couldn’t be kissing her. She stood up, dropping the ice and sending it scattering in all different directions, she nearly slipped on a piece as she bolted for the door.

“Iris, wait!” He called after her, but she didn’t look back, not even once, she just ran.

As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t avoid him all the next day. She couldn’t go where she wanted, or else she would have gone anywhere he wasn’t. How could he have kissed her? That wasn’t the Barry she knew, the Barry she knew was good. Or maybe there really was no such thing as a good white man, how could there be? How could she have been so wrong? She’d known Barry for seven years, if there was something dark in him, wouldn’t she have realized it much sooner? She tried not to think about it as she scrubbed the potatoes for cooking, she tried to focus on nothing but work. She wouldn’t think about escaping, or having adventures, or seeing Tulip again, or any of the things that simply couldn’t happen. If Barry wasn’t good then there was no good, no good that could do anything about the bad anyway. There was only a pile of potatoes caked with dirt, that was her life.

“Iris,” Barry whispered behind her, making her flinch. She turned to face him. The swelling was down, and his eyes stared wide into hers.

“Is there something I can get for you Mr. Allen?” she said in a small voice.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “That’s not who I am, you know that Iris.”

“I do?” she said, close to tears.

He looked back and forth to make sure there was no one close by, and focused his eyes on her again.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’m so very sorry, I didn’t mean to—

“I have to finish,” she said abruptly, turning back to her task and starting to scrub vigorously. He grabbed one from the pile and started to do the same.

“Don’t help!” she said, throwing it down. She headed for the pantry, not entirely sure why, there was nothing she needed from it, only to get away from him. But he followed, closing the door behind them. They just stood there in silence, him shifting his feet, her folding her arms around herself.

“What do you want from me?” she said, still facing the wall.

“I just want to talk,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Why?” she said, turning hesitantly.

“Because you’re crying, and I caused it,” he said. “And I’m sorry. I won’t kiss you again ever if that’s what you want, and I shouldn’t have in the first place, not without asking.”

“Why did you?” she said. “I mean, I thought… why did you?”

He looked so guilty, and so sad that she wanted to hug him, and she hated wanting that, it was wrong, it was all wrong.

“I did it because, I just…” he rubbed the back of his neck, trying to find the words. “I think you’re beautiful Iris. I think you’re more beautiful than any other girl I’ve ever seen in my life, and I don’t just mean your face, it’s everything. How you speak and how you move, and how sweet you are. And I just…”

“Well say it already!” she snapped, feeling more frantic and afraid with each passing moment, but it wasn’t him she was afraid of, it was something else, something she couldn’t place.

“I love you,” he said. “And I just thought that was what you’re supposed to do, when you love a girl, that’s all.”

It was just then, and probably long before, that she knew exactly what it was that scared her. She loved him too. She wiped her eyes and started to shake her head. She had to force the thought away, it was impossible, she couldn’t love him back, loving him back was the stupidest thing a smart girl like her could possibly do. But she couldn’t look at him without feeling it. It wasn’t going away, it had been there for too long without her even realizing it, now that she did it was a part of her. She could sooner cut off her own hand than stop loving him.

“Then maybe you should try it again. I mean, just this one time, now that I'm more ready for it,” she said so low she could barely hear her own voice. But he must have heard it, because he cradled her face in his hands and lened in tentatively to kiss her, long and slow and so tenderly the tears started to fall again. When his tongue slipped between her lips she felt something below her waist, a quick twinge, something that left her wanting for something she couldn’t describe. Before she could think too hard about what that was, he ended it with another quick kiss on her mouth, like a period sign, and again, on both cheeks and her forehead, an ellipsis. 

“Was that better?” he whispered, his hands still on her face. “I mean, now that you know why?”

She nodded softly. “It’s kind of like jumping off something real high, and landing in something real soft, is that how it is for you?”

“That’s how it is every time you touch me Iris,” he said. “Every time you look at me even.”

They couldn’t stay, sooner or later someone would come, someone would catch them, the ugly reality that reminded her of why she’d been so afraid before, why she still was.

**Central City, 1865**

When she woke up she remembered once again where she was, where she’d fought so hard to be, back when Barry first kissed her, she was so young, unaware of so much. She was older now, with responsibilities that meant much more, and no man but not much use for one, not just any one anyway. 

She yawned and stretched and got ready to face the day. She liked to look out the window first every morning, just to tell herself that everything outside of it belonged to her and her family. She smiled out toward the morning, that reminder warming her as much as the sunrise. But just as she prepared to go downstairs, to cook breakfast and visit with Pa and Wally, something caught her eye. There was someone out in front of her house, sitting on a horse and looking up. She couldn’t make out who with the sun’s rays obscuring her sight, but he seemed slighter than Anthony. Maybe it was another telegram from Dr. Wells. She wrapped herself in her bed coat and headed downstairs and out the front door.

The man dismounted his horse as she walked out onto the porch, and pat its mane twice.

“Hello, can I help you sir?”

He took a few steps forward, removing his hat and holding it to his chest, and she realized right away that she recognized him. But it couldn’t have been who it looked like, she was sure there were all sorts of skinny white men with those eyes, and those freckles and that mop of messy brown hair. There had to have been.

“Iris,” he said, his voice hoarse, but raspy or not, it was his. Only his.

She walked up to him carefully, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them again as though he might disappear, but he didn’t, he was there, he was real.

“Barry?”

**Stay tuned folks!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Central City, 1865**

He’d ridden for nearly three days straight, only ever stopping for naps and food and to give Ophelia some relief. The only thing driving him forward was the thought of her, who she’d become since he’d last seen her. If only he wouldn’t have decided to power through his nodding off, he may not have found himself passed out on the couch of some red haired woman with sad eyes.

“You know you scream in your sleep? Off and on nearly an hour, I just about chucked you back outside." she said, setting a hot cup of coffee on the table in front of him. He'd been dreaming about a man in his brigade who'd gotten his guts torn out of him by a bayonet. And yet it was the best he'd slept in weeks. He felt it, the good rest he’d gotten in between his troubled nightmares. His muscles still felt sore, but not prohibitively so, he could probably go the whole day looking for her although he had no idea where to start.

“I apologize, truly." he said, looking around. It was dim inside the little house, it must have been close to evening."Where am I? Where's my horse?"

“You’re right outside Central city, your horse is out back, she’s just fine, don’t you worry.”

“Central City,” he said. “How did I get here?”

“I suppose you rode in of your own volition,” she said.

“No, I mean how did I get _here?_ ”

“I found you asleep near my property, you must have fallen off your horse.”

He reached for the coffee and took a sip, it was strong and bitter, and already made him feel more awake.

“So, you fought for the North I see,” she nodded at his jacket, folded neatly over a nearby chair. “It’s funny, you don’t sound like a Yankee. You some kind of turncoat?”

“I guess you could say that,” He said, the woman, the stranger, sounded like every bit the Yankee he wasn’t. “I’m from right about here, but I lived in Georgia for almost ten years, guess it got into my voice a little.”

She nodded in understanding and took a seat across from him. “So, what are you doing back here anyway? Although considering the state of things down there I guess you don’t need much of a reason.”

“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “I rode three days straight almost.”

“Must be one hell of a someone,” she said. “You look half dead.”

He wouldn’t know, he hadn’t looked in a mirror in weeks.

“So, why’d you take me in anyway?” He said. “You could have dumped a bucket of water on my head and sent me on my merry.”

“I thought about it,” she said. “But you looked innocent enough, besides, I like to think if my Ronnie was ever in a bad way someone would’ve lent him a hand.”

Just then he noticed the thin silver ring on her finger. “Ronnie?”

“My husband,” she said. “Well he was my husband, although I like to think I’m still his wife.”

“He died in the war?” Barry guessed, and she nodded stiffly. “I’m sorry.”

“I was lucky though, I got to say goodbye, I served too you see, patched them up when they needed it. And they needed it, day in and day out they needed it. Sometimes they’d come to me so bloodied I wouldn’t even recognize them. And when Ronnie—

She paused, and shook her head. “I’m sorry don’t know why I’m telling you any of this, surely you know.”

“I do, I lost a lot of good men out there, friends.”

“Well, you made it back in one piece at least, that’s something to be thankful for.”

“I’m not exactly in one piece,” he said. “I don’t think my shoulder will ever be the same again after that shell tore through it. But I was lucky I didn’t bleed out.”

“Lucky indeed,” she said.

“What’s your name anyhow?” he said.

“Raymond,” she said. “Cait Raymond.”

“Well, thank you for the hospitality Cait, I should probably head on though.”

She nodded and smiled weakly at him. “This someone you’re looking for, is it someone you love?”

He didn’t need to answer, the wistful look on his face at the question was enough.

“Well when you find her, take care of her… I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Bartholomew H. Allen, Barry,” he said. “And I will, I promise.”

He stood up and reached for his Jacket, but she stepped in front of it.

“You know, you don’t have to rush off so soon,” she said. “I mean you look like you could use a hot meal, maybe a wash and a shave.”  
And he understood, she was lonely, probably had been for a while. 

“Besides, it’s getting dark out, how are you going to find this woman of yours when you can’t see three feet out in front of you?” she continued.

He didn’t want to admit that she made sense, because the longer he stayed the longer he’d be without the one he’d came for. But he probably did look a fright, and he certainly could have smelled better. Maybe that sort of thing wouldn’t matter to Iris, maybe she was just as dying to see him as he was her, but he couldn’t help but think it was better to be safe, to go to her looking as close to what she remembered as he could, so he decided to take her up on the offer. 

After a few more good hours of sleep, a warm bath and a meal, he felt almost as good as he had before leaving captain Queen’s. The hope he'd rode in with had magnified. Central City was his home once, it could be again. With his education he could get a job teaching at the university level, he'd already sent the head of the Science department his college and apprenticeship records. He'd find Iris find a job and live a good life, he was certain of it now. He knew Ophelia appreciated the extra rest too, she already looked younger and more energetic when he went to her just before sunrise. He couldn’t wait for it to get light out, he had a lot to do. He knew that the freedman were all documented, but Iris had been a runaway, finding her wouldn’t be as easy as looking through some book at city hall. 

Cait had Ophelia holed up in the small stable out back with apples and grain for food. In the dim glow provided by his lantern he noticed the newspapers lining the far wall of the stables, dozens of them from all over, The New York Times, The Central City Citizen, The Philadelphia Inquirer, even The Central City Bellwether, a relatively obscure publication but one Barry was somewhat familiar with, Scott Evans’ Newspaper.

“Oh,” Cait said sheepishly. “That’s something Ronnie did. He said it was motivation, having all the goings on in the world right in front of his face every morning. Reminded him to go out and do some good.”

“Sounds like he was a good man,” Barry said.

“Too good.” she said, she paused, biting her lip. “Do you ever wonder sometimes if it was worth it?” 

“If what was worth it?”

Her eyes were dark and full of sorrow and her lip began to shake, but she swallowed and her voice came out steady. “All of it, the war,” she said.

He didn’t know what she meant by that. He wasn’t sure he cared to know either. He was grateful for her hospitality, but he needed to be on his way.

He thanked her again and went for Ophelia, but stopped when something caught his eye. If he’d moved even a little differently he would have missed the headline completely.

_Still Searching For The North Star_

_By Ira West, assistant Editor._

Ira West? It couldn’t have been.

**Georgia, 1856**

He knew what was going on in her head even if she never dared to say it. He knew because he knew her, her strong sense of justice, her beautiful restlessness, he knew her like he knew his own heart. And he knew he couldn’t love her enough to make her forget where she was, who she’d been forced to be. Every day she got a little sadder, a little further away. Maybe he did too, every time his uncle blacked one of his eyes or kicked at his ribs or shoved him against walls it was like part of him chipped away in the older man’s hands. 

When they were younger their love was their protection, their shelter, but as they got older it became harder to keep everything else out, the rapidly mounting feelings of despair and anger that weighed them down. They still spent all the time they could together, and when he was kissing her, and touching her under her clothes it was the only time he didn’t feel like something inside was crumbling. It seemed like some nights all they did was kiss. She’d meet him at the tree by the pond and crash her lips into his without a word, like he was her only source of air, and when she’d let him up he’d kiss all down her neck and all down her breasts and back her up against the tree. They’d go for as long as they could before they got too tired. As desperately as he wanted to, he couldn’t put himself inside of her, giving Iris a baby would be beyond dumb, but they got as close as they could for as long as they could, as often as they could.

Whenever she’d fall asleep next to him he wanted nothing more than to pick her up and take her to his bed, let her sleep late into the morning, but he could only shake her gently awake instead, and walk her as close as he could back to the quarters. Whenever she was gone again the feelings set back in, the feelings of wanting to kill his uncle and run away with her. But where would they go? Where could he love her freely and completely without fear? He wasn’t afraid for himself, only her, how they might hurt her. 

At night sometimes she’d lay on her stomach, her head turned and propped on her crossed arms, and he’d rub the knots out of her back, hearing her little sighs. 

“You going to sleep?” He whispered in her ear once her breathing got heavy.

“No,” she whispered. “Just resting.”

“You want me to take you back?”

“No, shh, I’m all right here,” she said. “Go lower.”

So he did, kneading the tender muscles in her lower back until she felt as close to better as she could. When he finished she turned around to lay on her back, and he laid next to her, twining his fingers with hers as they looked up at the sky. After two thirds of the day on her feet, laying down on the cool grass and staring up at the beauty of the universe was something of a relief, although he couldn’t imagine it was much of one. He had to say something to keep the reality from setting in again, because when the morning came she went right back to being someone’s property.

“Did you know that a star can die?” He said, not knowing why, maybe because he’d been thinking about them again that day, momma and poppa, how different things might have ended up had they survived.

“They can?” She said.

“Yeah, some of the ones you’re looking at right now died a long time ago, I’m talking years and years.”

“Why’re they still shining then?”

“It’s their light you’re seeing, just the light. They’re so far away it takes millennia, that’s thousands of ye-

“I know what millennia means, go on,” she said, smirking at him.

“Anyway, the light takes millennia to get to us, by the time it does the star’s already gone, but we can still see it clear as ever, like ghosts. I always thought that was kind of beautiful.”

He could feel her shoulder move against his, hear the grass rustle as she shrugged. “I don’t know, she said. Sounds kind of sad to me.”

  


“Yeah maybe, it’s just nice to think about, how people leave behind memories of themselves.”

“Don’t you mean stars?”

“No, I mean people,” he turned on his side to face her, and brushed a curly strand of hair away from her forehead. He wasn’t going to ask if it was all right, he knew it wasn’t

“Iris I—

“You see that?” She said, his eyes followed as she pointed up at the constellation. “The one that looks like a v all bent in on itself, that’s Andromeda. The one next to it looking like a daddy long legs, that’s—

“Perseus,” Barry said with a curious expression.

“You know how the gods were always fighting each other over one dumb thing or another? Well one day Andromeda’s momma Cassiopeia, the one over there that's like a stretched out w, she said something real stupid to anger the sea gods, and when the sea gods got angry, no one was safe. Poseidon was the worst of them, get him mad there was no telling what he’d do. So when Cassiopeia started going on about how Andromeda was more beautiful than the daughters of one of the sea Gods, I forget his name. I know, why would Poseidon care right? But for some reason it really aggravated him, so he set this big sea monster loose on the coast of Ethiopia. Cerus his name was.”

“Then what happened?” he said in nearly a whisper.

“It turned out the only way to stop them was to tie Andromeda up to some rocks on the coast, offer her as a sacrifice to the monster. But a miraculous thing happened, turned out Perseus was just coming back from fighting the Gorgon, and he happened across Andromeda, and decided what’s one more monster to kill? He turned himself invisible with this magical boat steer he got from Zeus, and he slayed Cerus, rescued Andromeda, and they fell in love. Now they live up there together, forever.”

“How do you know all that?” he asked.

“Heard it in a story once, I guess I remembered. I learned some things about stars before I met you,” she said. “Like that one.”

She pointed to the star at the tip of the big dipper, Polaris. The North Star.

“We were supposed to follow it, follow it to a new home. But we never did, Wally, he was just too small back then.”

“Iris,” he said, noticing the shake in her voice. “Can you look at me?”

She did, and he could see how the moonlight caught the tears in her eyes.

“I can’t live like this Barry,” she said. “I can’t wake up here every day anymore, I can’t”

“Then tell me what to do,” he said, sitting up, she sat up too and swiped away her tears. “Whatever you want I’ll do it.”

“Come with me,” she said. “Come with us.”

She was going to run, he knew it, maybe he always knew it. And as scared as he was for her, he’d never try to stop her. He’d follow her anywhere, and he'd keep her safe no matter what. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hair, and swore to her that he would. And he would have, had everything not gone so completely wrong.

**Central City, 1865**

He didn’t know for sure, only that even the colored newspapers weren’t likely to publicly allow a woman to hold a position as editor, none of the bylines had female names. Ira West could have been a man, or it could have been her. After nearly half a day’s research, he learned that The Bellwether was silently funded in part by journalist and editor Mason Bridge, who provided Scott Evans with a generous loan as a response to his own paper’s reluctance to allow colored writers. Since Evans himself had left Central City after the fire, Mason Bridge was the one to find, although his involvement ended with his financial contributions, surely he must have known whether or not Ira was really Iris.

Barry arrived at The Central City Citizen at around 6 pm. It was a cramped, stuffy, noisy building that smelled of pulp and sweat and seemed to never stop moving. As he made his way through the open door of Editor in chief Bridge he got the sneaking suspicion that nobody surrounding him even noticed his presence, or did but were too busy to care.  
Mason Bridge was a harried, bespectacled man with a full beard, aggressively marking a sheet of words illegible from where Barry stood.

“Franklin, If I find one more split infinitive on this print I’ll have your balls for paperweights!” Bridge yelled past him, giving Barry a clue as to why the door was kept open. “Who are you?” he continued toward Barry.

“I have questions about the Central City Bellwether,” Barry said, trying not to sound timid in the man’s presence.

Bridge looked up at him for the first time. “What’s to know?” he said sadly. “It’s a pile of ash, there are savages everywhere, not just The South Mr…

“Allen,” Barry said.

“Mr. Allen, if you don’t mind I’m extremely busy at the moment.”

“I just want to know about one of its writers, a Mr. Ira West.”

“Yes, a fine writer, perhaps a little sentimental for my taste, but fine indeed, what would you like to know about him?”

“So it is a man?”

Mason looked up at him again, curious. “What are you playing at boy?”

“I just thought that it may have been a woman, I just saw seven women in your newsroom but this paper has exactly one female writer on record, your home tips girl. What do the rest of them do? They can’t all be secretaries. My guess is they work under pen names.”

“Pen names are unfortunately a necessary evil for our female writers Mr. Allen,” Mason said. “I want our readers to notice their skill not their gender.”

“Was that the case for the Bellwether too? Because I just thought that maybe Ira West was actually a woman, a beautiful woman with eyes like a baby deer and a voice you want to wrap yourself in.”

Mason narrowed his eyes at Barry quizzically.

“Is there something you wish to say to me or are we going to continue with this cryptic nonsense?”

“Iris West,” he said. “I’m looking for Iris West.”

Mason turned his attention back toward the paper in front of him, continuing with his hurried markings.

“I know no one by that name.”

“I think you do,” Barry said. And he didn’t know why he was so confident all of a sudden, but something about Mason’s face at that name drove him on. “Did she write for the Bellwether or not?”

Bridge removed his spectacles, rubbed the red and indented bridge of his nose, and replaced them, once again he looked up at Barry.

“I suppose there’s no reason to lie to you, the paper is no more, but yes, she worked for Scott Evans between 1859 and 1862. Then for another three months after the war until a group of drunken delinquents decided to destroy everything they built. What do you want with Iris?”

“I’m not looking to cause her anymore strife, I just want to see her, she’s a friend, an old friend.”

“And you’d think I’d offer you that information? I haven’t the slightest idea who you are Mr. Allen.”

“Listen, I promise I mean her no harm and I’m sure that Iris would like to see me—

“Mr Bridge,” said a voice from behind him. Barry turned to see a small, pretty woman with black hair gathered at her neck and almond shaped eyes, one of which had a faint ink smudge beneath it. “Mr. Faraday is here to see you.”

“Send him in Linda, Mr. Allen was just on his way.”

Barry sighed, he’d have to find another way, still it was something. Iris was a writer, or at least she had been. The whole thing made him desperately sad, the thought of Iris doing such good work, only to have it destroyed by people unworthy of her words. He always thought that she would make such a good writer.

“Thank you for your time Mr. Bridge,” Barry said, and followed the young woman out.

He stood against the outside wall of the Citizen, wondering exactly what his next move would be. Once again it was growing dim, an entire day in Central City and he knew he wasn’t much closer to finding her. But he wouldn’t give up until he did, although he hadn’t completely thought through what he’d do when the time came. What if she was married with children? What if she barely remembered him? What if it was worse? If there were people in Central City violent and full of hate enough to burn down her paper, what were they capable of doing to her? He swallowed hard, he felt so close but still so far.

Lost in his own head, Barry all but flinched when a soft hand landed on his shoulder. He turned to see the woman with the almond shaped eyes again. He’d never actually seen a Chinawoman before. He’d met a man from Shanghai during the war, and a man from Taiwan in Philadelphia, but no women. 

“Barry Allen?” she said, and he couldn’t understand the look on her face. She looked at him like he was some long lost brother.

“Um, yes,” he said.

“Bartholemew H. Allen?” she said again, and he wished he knew what was happening, why this lovely but strange woman seemed so delighted and shocked to see him. She hadn’t reacted that way before in Bridge’s office.

“Yes,” he said again, and he surely didn’t know how to react when an instant later she threw her thin arms around his neck.

“Oh my goodness!” she said, still holding him, he held his arms out awkwardly, not sure what else to do. She broke the embrace and held him by the arms, as if to keep him from running, something he seriously thought about doing. “You look exactly as she described you.”

“Wait,” he said, something rising in his chest. “Who?”

“Iris,” she said. “I’m Mr. Bridge’s assistant, I used to work with her on the Bellwether. I was the only Korean there but she was always so warm and kind, we became friends actually, and she told me all of these things, things about you. And i couldn't help overhearing when you said her name, then Mr. Bridge used yours. It just took a few moments to reconcile the two.”

He felt as if he might cry, She remembered him after all, well enough to speak kindly of him to a friend. He was also delighted to know that she even had a friend, that she had so much, even if a great deal of it had been ruined.

“You have to tell me, where can I find her?” He said, barely able to control the volume or unsteadiness of his voice.

“She lives in The Keystone, it’s the colored community right on the outskirts, she has a house there. But she won’t be home until late.”

“I have to find her now, where can I go?”

“If I knew I would certainly tell you, she’s working on some project, only her family knows of what and where.”

“You don’t understand, if I don’t see her right away I'm going to explode. It’s been years and yet I can’t wait a second longer.”

“Oh my word,” she said, still beaming. “After all these years, you still love her.”

“Of course.”

“I truly can’t tell you where she is, but you can go to her house, tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” she said. 

He took a few deeps breaths, trying to compose himself.

“All right,” he said, thinking tomorrow was far better than never. “Tomorrow.”

****

He found the nearest inn to The Keystone, but he knew he wouldn’t get a bit of sleep. He’d gotten the room to avoid being presumptuous. Once he’d gotten past his excitement over Linda’s words his sense of logic began to return to him. Just because Iris spoke of him fondly once didn’t mean that she was ready for him to be hers again. He needed a place to stay in case their reunion wasn’t the outpouring of affection he’d hoped for. 

When the morning came, he clutched the address tightly in his fist, although he’d read it enough times to memorize it, and hopped onto Ophelia, feeling as rested and energetic as if he’d slept for hours. Her house was four miles from the inn, four miles between him and Iris, him and his north star.

He arrived at the house a little past sunrise. It was the biggest in The Keystone and nearest to the woods. Painted white with green shutters and a porch. It was a beauty, hardly ostentatious, but a beauty all the same. It must have been the one she spoke of building with her family. He looked up at the window, and his heart leapt at the sight of a woman’s silhouette, her full view was obscured by the curtains, but it had to be her. He needed for it to be her.

A few moments later, an angel appeared from behind the front door, and stepped onto the porch. She looked every bit the same, yet stunningly different at once. Her face was slimmer, more refined, her wild curls were twisted into a thick braid that rested on her thin shoulder, she was wrapped in a housecoat and her feet were bare. He wanted to pick her up and hold onto her for hours.

She stepped toward him and his heart seemed to double in speed, moreso when she called out to him, “Hello, can I help you sir?” She didn't recognize him. But no, she had to, she was just too far. He took a few steps forward, and she stopped short, her eyes going wide.

“Iris,” he said, needing her to hear his voice, but it wasn't his, it was thick and raspy from thirst. She closed her eyes and opened them again, as if to prove to herself that she wasn't hallucinating.

She wasn't, he'd come for her, and he would stay with her forever if that's what she wanted. He didn't care how long it had been, how many small, insignificant details had faded from his memory, Iris was Iris, and he was hers. 

"Barry," she whispered, and he knew he was home.

**Stay Tuned Folks!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will likely post the final chapter of The Speed Freak And The Comic Geek before the weekend is out for those of you following that story, I’m taking my time with it as I have a lot to cover. So until then I hope you enjoy this update

 

**Central City 1865**

She felt as if her feet were going to give out under her, like her legs were brittle twigs and little more than a faint breeze would snap them, sending her to the ground. He was there, right in front of her eyes as if he’d never left. The closer he got the more she could make out the little details in his face that had changed; the scars on his chin, the bridge of his nose, and his forehead; the way he walked taller and straighter than before. But different or not it was undoubtedly him.

She’d always wondered what she’d do if she ever saw him again, whether she’d throw her arms around him and hug him tight or tell him once again to leave and never come back. She hadn’t wanted him gone even then, but she needed him gone, she couldn’t look him in the face anymore after what had happened to her. They’d been so careful, for years they’d never let anyone else know. Of course she was sure that her father suspected it, or at least suspected something, but he’d never told her to stop what she was doing. He hated Barry Allen as much as he hated every other white man, but he must have seen the way he loved her, the way he looked at her like she was the most precious thing on earth. Anyone who was really looking could see. And before anything else, he was her friend, which wasn't the worst thing.

But all Barry's uncle saw that morning was somebody else touching what he believed to be his. The first time they weren't careful, the first time they couldn’t fight off the sleep that overcame them as they laid on the grass wrapped up in each other, she paid for it dearly.

**Georgia 1856**

He held onto her hand so tight as she was being pulled away from him, she thought she might split in two. He only released her when Thawne kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him falling back. And he took her, dragged her kicking and screaming, her dress undone from the night before. He’d ordered Hunter to do his absolute worst as he held Barry back to watch, assuring him that every snap of the whip was his fault.

She’d stopped feeling the lashes after about 40, stopped hearing Barry scream for Hunter to stop, stopped hearing anything, she passed out from the pain, wilting unconscious against the tree her hands were bound to. She didn’t hear anything again until what must have been hours later, when his voice woke her from her pained slumber, full of disturbing dreams.

She was laying on her stomach, her head facing the door, and Barry was there. Tears were in his bloodshot eyes, a bottle was in his shaking hand.

“Please, let me help her, please,” he cried, sounding broken and anguished.

“You’ve done enough boy,” Joe said in a tone as dark as his eyes.

“Barry,” her voice was small and ragged, and Barry’s eyes went wide at the sound of it, he sprinted around Joe and collapsed onto his knees at her side.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” He said, grabbing her hand. She couldn’t speak anymore, it was too hard, but she kept her eyes on him.

“I can’t stay,” he said. “But I got you something,”

He produced the deep red glass bottle, and uncorked it.

“Drink this, just a sip or two,” he said. “It's Laudanum, to take some of the pain away, make you sleep.”

She didn’t care what it was, she needed it, it was like every part of her had been burned away, all she could feel was pain. She sipped the horribly bitter liquid and swallowed it down.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” he said. She’d never seen him that way before, not even after all the times he’d been hurt himself. He leaned in, touching his forehead to hers and brushing her hair back from her face.

“I failed you Iris, he said. I was supposed to keep you safe and I failed.”

She didn’t know why, but it made her angry, him talking like that. It wasn’t him on that table. It wasn’t him that should feel miserable or need reassurance that he was still good, and loved, and not a monster. He was good, and she did love him, but she didn’t care to tell him any of that, least of all because she couldn’t speak. He was like them, no matter how hard he tried not to be, he was. No matter how he suffered he would never be the one tied to the tree. Never had that reality sunk in faster than it had looking at him that night. And as hard as it was to admit it to herself, her family was safer without him, and as infuriating as it was to think it, Barry was safer without her.

“Go,” was the only word she could manage.

“All right sweetheart,” he said so softly, and she hated it even more. Hated him, loved him, hated herself for loving him. “I’ll let you sleep.”

When he kissed her she didn’t pull away, because the pain was unbearable but his lips were soft and almost cool against her fevered ones, and for the tiniest fraction of a moment the touch of them made her forget how thoroughly she'd been broken.

“I love you so much Iris,” he said. “Please know that.”

She did know it, and it hurt worse than the whip.

“Time to go Boy,” Joe said, there were tears in the older man's throat that betrayed the threat in his voice, but Barry stood and started for the door as told. 

She didn’t know why, what she was trying to say to him, if she had anything to say at all, but she grabbed his wrist as he started out, stopping him. He looked down at her, his green eyes dilated in the dim lantern light. She wanted things to be different, and they never would be, ever. She let go of his wrist and he walked out, tripping briefly over a floor board, the minor accident that would change her life forever.

**Central City 1865**

She couldn’t decide how many moments passed without either of them speaking. They just stared at each other like they couldn't do a thing else. After an eternity she took the last steps forward. He was close enough to touch.

“Iris,” he said again. His voice, she hadn’t heard his voice in nine years, hadn’t seen his face or touched his skin or kissed his lips. Nine years.

“s'pose you should come in,” she said, and turned away toward her front door. She walked in, and he followed.

He sat silently across from her, taking in the space. All of the chairs, the blackboard in front, the two little stacks of books she’d purchased with her earnings, the small wood burning stove and pantry. It seemed to look like what it was, a good place.

“Is this a school?” he said.

“No,” she answered a bit too quickly. “I mean, I call it a school they can arrest me, so no.”

He looked like he didn’t know what to say, a lot like how she felt.

“They come in from around The Keystone after work usually, and we practice our reading, and our arithmetic. We support them, that’s all.”

“Iris, you don’t have to explain yourself to me, I think it’s great, really,” He smiled at her, and his smile was the same, he was the same.

She glanced through the front window, feeling strange. “Was that Ophelia?” she said, looking out at the horse outside, tied to the fence post.

He turned to look where she was looking, then back toward her. “Yeah, still healthy as a horse.”

She smiled weakly.

“I can’t believe it, it’s been so long,” he said. “I mean, how have you been? What have you—

“Why are you here Barry?” She didn’t mean it to come out that way, or maybe she did, she didn’t know her own mind anymore, him being there after so long couldn’t be anything but it playing tricks on her.

His eyes grew dark, and he reached into his breast pocket, pulling out the familiar sheet of paper folded three times.

“I found your letter,” he said. She should have known. She wrote that letter never expecting him to find it, let alone follow it, she wrote that letter as nothing more than a sweeter goodbye than she had left him with before.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” she said. “I didn’t mean what I said back then, about wanting to stay. I thought maybe deep down you’d realize that.”

“I did,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d still be there, I just thought maybe, if there was part of you that still loved me, you’d tell me where you were going, and you did.”

She had, and he’d come.

“I’m sorry it took so long, I truly am.”

“Barry, you don’t have to apologize,” she said. “I didn’t tell you to leave as some kind of a test, I told you to leave because I wanted you gone.”

Her voice was strangled with the truth she didn’t want him to know back then but needed him to know right now, because he was in her house after all that time, and she wanted him to be anywhere else. The longer he stayed the more she’d want him to stay, and that was dangerous, the prickles on her back reminded her just how dangerous that was.

“I wanted you gone because… I couldn’t look at you Barry,” she admitted bitterly. “I couldn’t see the boy I loved anymore, I just saw the enemy, and I felt like the worst sort of traitor for loving you.”

She expected him to look hurt, like he had the night he left when she insisted that she didn’t love him at all. But he didn’t look hurt, in fact he reached out for her hand, and held it gently.

“I’m never going to understand Iris, I’m never going to know what it’s like,” he said. “What it was like for you to live every day, I never will. I’m not going to tell you how you should have felt about me, or how you should feel about me now even. All I know is that, even if I did understand, I couldn’t possibly love you more than I do.”

She didn’t see how he could talk to her that way, like he’d seen her every day for the past nine years, when they couldn’t have been further apart.

“You don’t love me Barry,” she said, shaking her head, pulling her hand away. “You don’t even know me anymore.”

“I want to know everything about you,” he said. She wanted to know everything about him too, how he’d gotten his scars, who he’d met, who he’d loved. She wanted to know him again, and that terrified her.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said, not believing her own voice. “I wrote you that letter because I wanted you to think well of me, and the time that we spent together, not because I hoped you come find me,” although she had hoped in some way that he would, she must have. She shook away the thought, it was a ridiculous thought.

“I needed to find you Iris, I needed to see you again.”

“After nine years?” she said, her voice going up. “Why?”

He took both her hands that time and she didn’t pull away, his knee began to bounce under the table.

“Because,” he said. “After the war, everyone talked about going home to see their families. Captain Queen was going to go home and see his family, Sergeant Ramon was going to go home and see his family, home, family, home family, that’s all I ever heard. And it’s what I wanted too, I wanted to go home and see my family. The only thing was, after my parents died, the only home I ever knew was with you. The only family I ever had was you. So that’s where I knew I had to be.”

He needed to go, if he stayed any longer everything was going to change, no matter how she fought it.

“Barry I—

 _I think you should go_ , it was all she had to say. He would listen, he wasn’t forceful, he respected her wishes, all she had to do was tell him to go and he would, it would be so easy.

“Barry I think you should—

Why was it so hard to say? Was it his eyes staring so nakedly into hers? Was it his hands? Warm and rough and slender, clasped around her hands? Was it his voice? Telling her he loved her as openly and sincerely as the last time.

“I think you should,” she started, with every intention of finishing the way she planned.

“…Stay for breakfast.”

As soon as the words left her lips she knew she was in trouble.

 

**Stay tuned folks!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the chapters being on the short side. I don't have as much time as I'd like to work on this, so in order to keep the updates relatively speedy and the writing quality decent, I have to sacrifice length, but I promise we're getting somewhere. Thank you for your patience.

When he told her he wanted to know everything about her, he wasn’t lying. Within the hour that passed he must have asked 100 questions. close to last being where she had been all that time. He’d told her he knew a few details, and he told her how he knew them, but he wanted to hear it from her. He wanted to see the emotions on her face as she talked about fleeing Thawne’s. It wasn’t a painful memory, it was one of her first good ones. It was the night her life truly started.

“That night, when I was hurt, and you left, you tripped over this board in the floor,” she started.

“I remember,” he said.

“There was a map under that board,” she continued. “The one Tulip was going to use to lead us out before she got sold. We thought it was gone, but she must’ve left it for us. So we made the decision, as soon as I healed up we’d go.”

“So what you said to me that night…”

“It was a lie, all of it.”

He nodded once, sharply. He didn’t blame her. After what had happened, she became afraid of what else might happen to both of them if they were caught loving each other. Even just the suspicion was dangerous, and she couldn’t put herself or her family at any more risk. So the night Barry came back for her, she lied, she told him she didn’t love him, that she never loved him, and that she’d changed her mind about running. He knew then somehow that she didn’t mean it. There had been tears in her eyes and her voice was shaking as she kept finding new things to say, caring things that completely betrayed the idea that she didn’t love him. It was as if she couldn’t help herself. She told him what books he should take to college, and made sure he knew she didn’t blame him for her being hurt, but also that he needed to go. When he’d taken another pleading step toward her she’d shouted it

  _GO!_

And after a while of ineffectual pleading, he’d listened, feeling a deep pain in his chest as he turned away. He thought about it over and over, how to get her to change her mind. He thought of stealing her, of sneaking into her home and carrying her away. But he remembered what his mother said, about taking her from her family because _he_ wanted her. She wasn’t his to have, no more than she was Thawne’s.

He also thought of staying with her, but the day Iris had been whipped, Thawne released him once Hunter was finished, making him collapse to the ground in nausea and despair. He’d waited until Barry emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground, then he grabbed the younger man’s jaw roughly enough to bruise, lowered his lips to his ear and said.

_Leave, and if you ever come back, I’ll kill you both._

Barry had believed him entirely, he was careful about not being seen when he went back for Iris, but he couldn’t have stayed.

“I cried all night long after you left,” she said, shaking her head bitterly. “I never meant it, I loved you deeply.”

“I know,” he said. "I always knew Iris. It just, it wasn't enough back then."

She shook her head no in reluctant agreement and continued her story.

“Two days after you left for good, we poisoned their drinks. We used that medicine you gave me, the one that knocked me out flat, their bourbon was so strong thy couldn't tell the difference. We didn’t know whether it was enough to kill them or not, and we didn’t care.”

He wondered if he should tell her that Thawne was alive, albeit barely alive. And once again he felt that familiar pang of guilt for not killing him himself the night he left. He hadn’t lost his nerve, at least not at first. In one last attempt to free Iris, he’d crept into the man’s room when he was sleeping, aimed the gun at his head knowing full well he'd have to shoot Hunter too when he ran in. He muffled it with a pillow and pulled the trigger, all of the breath leaving Barry as he did it. The gun was jammed, and once he realized it, it dawned on him how close he’d gotten to taking a man’s life, the life of a man his mother once loved. It was before the war, before he had went on to kill in the name of justice, he might not have let a jammed gun stop him if he’d already been used to taking lives, he would have found another alternative, maybe a knife. Instead he’d set the gun down and left. The thought had ripped him apart for years. How could he not kill the man who’d so hurt the girl he loved? How could he leave her? Those questions haunted him all six years of college, both years on the battlefields.

“What happened next?” he asked, trying to keep those ugly, familiar thoughts at bay.

“We came here,” she said. “It wasn’t easy, we stayed in safe houses, slept outside, nearly went hungry some nights. But eventually we made it here. We stayed in this one room above a general store. Momma, Poppa and Wally found work wherever they could. Momma worked as a seamstress, poppa and Wally did construction and field work here and there, not much different than what they used to do, honestly, but at least they got paid for it. Me, I found work cleaning the presses and sweeping up at The Citizen after hours, delivering papers in the mornings, I tried my best to keep a low profile but it wasn’t always easy, all those words everywhere, I couldn’t help circling the ones that were spelled wrong. Luckily no one really seemed to notice except Scott.

“Scott Evans?” Barry asked, and she nodded.

“He was the first Black student at Central City Research University, but a lot of the professors wouldn’t even allow him to sit in their classes. They had to find other ways for him to get credit so he wound up getting an apprenticeship with Mason Bridge. After he graduated though there was no place for him to go, the citizen wouldn’t give him a job no matter how good he was. So Bridge decided to give him the money to start his own newspaper, and Scott brought me with him.”

He wondered about Scott, whether he was handsome or not, whether Iris thought so. He was definitely brilliant, and black, one of which Barry could never be. But he tried not to feed those anxieties for too long. Even if she had been with Scott, she would have been well within her rights. Sure he’d never been with Patty in the romantic sense, but he’d considered it, he’d considered how much easier it would be for everyone if he could fall in love with her.

“We did all right for a while,” she said. “after a few years we saved enough to build this house.”

“It’s lovely,” He said, scanning the room once more to confirm his statement.

“I was just happy momma got to live in such a fine house for a while, before she passed,” Iris said, moisture gathering in her eyes. He wanted to reach out and sweep her tears away, but she didn’t know him that way anymore, so he simply squeezed her hand a bit harder. “She started getting sick a little after we moved here. I think she was waiting to die, waiting for something good so she could go happy.”  


“I’m truly sorry,” Barry said.

“It’s all right,” Iris said. “She had a few good years, that’s more than most of us can hope for.”

The silence became thick around them, and he studied her face, etched with all of its sadness. His heart ached with the need to hold her, kiss her, tell her he was there for her and would never leave for as long as she wanted him. It nearly scared him how powerfully he still loved her. When they were apart for so long he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her, he did every day, at random moments without being able to control it, but that was nothing compared to how it felt to be in the same room with her again. Somehow, some way he would earn her love again, he would convince her that they could be safe, and happy. Against all odds they could be together. She had to believe that.

“What about the war?” he said, trying to keep his head in the room for a while longer. He knew from Mason’s story that she hadn’t written for The Bellwether for three years while the war raged on, it was the thing he’d been most curious about.

“Scott and I went to do a story on the 52nd brigade, they were settled about 100 miles out. It was only supposed to take a couple of weeks.”

“But?” And just then she smiled, just a tiny smile, but still, the first one he’d seen from her in nine years. He’d forgotten just how pretty that smile was.

“Well, I found Tulip,” She said. Tulip O’Hare, the half-black house slave who’d been the first to teach Iris words. Iris used to say she was one of the prettiest women she’d ever seen, the kindest and smartest too.

“She was traveling with this group posing as missionaries, led by Tulip, this Irish Fella, and this preacher. Well he said he was a preacher but he sure didn’t act much like one, all that drinking and cursing he did. But anyhow, they used the cover to see what the other side was up to, and report back to the brigade, but they also broke up the plantations, freed the people and led them out. And when she told me, I just had to go with her. So I told Scott to go back without me and deliver a letter to my father. I knew he wouldn’t be happy, but I had to give other people the chance I’d gotten.”

“That sounds very heroic,” he said. And as she described her experiences, the men, women and children she'd freed, he pictured her as this strong, beautiful force, valiantly navigating her way through the dark woods to infiltrate quarters all over the south, taking the hands of frightened children, making them feel safe with her smile alone. She _was_ a hero, she was so much more than that.

“They were some of the toughest, scariest years of my life,” She said. “There were nights I knew for sure that I was going to die. But I didn’t, I survived for three years and we rescued more people than I can even count. By the end of it all Tulip asked me to go west with them, but I’d been away from my family too long already. So I went back and started work on the Bellwether again. _Still Searching for the North Star_ was the last story I wrote before I left, and I feel like I found it out there.”

“I saw that,” he said. “I want to read it, I want to read everything you’ve ever wrote.”

“I have them all, stowed away for safe keeping,” she said, pointing upstairs. “But before that, I want to know about you, what did you do when we were apart””

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get even a word out he heard the front door open behind him. He turned frantically to see Joe West walk in with three dead rabbits bound together and a gun in hand, Wally, who’d only been a little boy when Barry had left, was now a young man, walking in behind his father in muddy boots.

“What in God’s name?” Joe said, stilling at the sight of the white man at the table, holding hands with his daughter, he pulled them away and stood up, running his hands swiftly down the front of his coat and extending one for the older man to shake.

“Sir,” Barry said. “Very good to see you again.”

“Iris, what is this fool doing here?” Joe said, ignoring the proffered hand and looking right past him to his daughter, who left her own chair and went to meet her father by the door.

“Pa, you remember Barry Allen?”

“Yeah, the reason you got them stripes all up and down your back, I remember real well,” Barry flinched slightly at the accusation, because he knew, no matter what Iris had said, it was his fault. He wasn't as tired as she was. He could have stayed up, carried her home, and he’d never let himself forget that.

“Pa, that’s not—

“It’s all right,” Barry said. “I apologize for just stopping in like this. I should head on back.”

“No, Barry what about Breakfast, those bunnies are awful fat, I’m sure I could cook up enough stew for all of us.”

“You heard the man Iris, let him be on his way,” Joe said.

“Pa, it’s fine,” she said. And suddenly her eyes were wider, she was speaking faster, she almost sounded panicked, and a little smile reached his lips. She didn’t want him to go. “Sit on down Barry.”

So he obeyed, his eyes still on Joe, who looked at him like he wanted to hunt him down like those rabbits. Iris grabbed them from her father and kissed him on the cheek, but Joe’s burning stare never left the nervous white man sitting at his table.

“I’ll just get these skinned up outside,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” Barry said. Not wanting to be left alone with Iris’s father and brother.

“Hey, you be careful, ya’hear?” Wally whispered in his ear as he passed. It sounded more like a threat than a warning, but he said nothing in return as he followed Iris outside.

She strung the rabbits up from a low tree branch and began skinning them quickly and skillfully as he watched her. She could get the skins off in one go, which was hard to do, at least it was for him the couple of times he tried it. It was amazing, how even the way she skinned rabbits impressed him.

“Wally’s gotten so big,” Barry said. “He was only a little past my elbow when I left.”

“Sometimes he’s too grown for his own good,” she said affectionately, one second before yanking down the pelt like peeling a banana, leaving only muscle and blood behind. “But you should see how fast he reads now, he’ll have me beat pretty soon.”

After skinning the last one, she was left with little spots of blood spattered on her face, hands and apron, it amused him how adorable she still looked in spite of it.

“I hope you’re not too hungry, it usually takes about an hour and a half.”

“I can wait,” he said. “I have all the time in the world.”

****

The rabbit stew, heavy and hearty with potatoes, mushrooms, onions and creamy broth, was about the best thing he'd tasted in years. It was so delicious he didn't even notice after a while the way Joe glared at him across the table every so often.

"This is fantastic Iris," Barry said.

"Momma's recipe," she said.

"God rest her soul," Wally said. Joe continued to glare.

"So, Barry," Iris said. "What about you? What have you been up to these last few years?"

He told her between big, ravenous mouthfuls, about college, how he'd made the decision to join the war.

"When Lincoln gave his proclamation, I knew I had to join up. It was the only right thing I could do."

Joe set his spoon down in the bowl with a clink and swallowed the mouthful of stew. "So what, you wanted to play the great white hero boy, that it?"

"Pa," Iris said, a warning in it.

"I'm just asking," Joe said. Barry swallowed hard, wondering if maybe he should leave, it was clear Joe didn't want him there, and it was his house too. But he decided to answer the question.

"I was never a hero," he said. "I just..."

"Go on Barry, it's all right," Iris said.

"I just wanted to feel closer somehow, to her. That's the only reason I've done anything in the last few years to be honest. I thought about finding her earlier, after college maybe, but I knew I'd never be fit to be with her unless I did something, anything to help, to make the world better and safer. I didn't care about being good enough for anyone but her."

Joe's face changed slightly at the words, not in sympathy or understanding of the boy, more like disbelief that he'd have the gall to admit his feelings so openly, knowing just how little Joe thought of him.

"Well, you ain't," Joe said almost casually, He looked away from Barry and continued his meal. Barry looked at Iris, who stared back at him almost angrily. He remembered that look, it was the same look she gave a few minutes before he'd kissed her a second time. Like she was asking him with her eyes why he had to make things so difficult, why they couldn't just have breakfast without him pouring his heart out in front of her family. But he couldn't help himself.

"Well," Iris said. "I'm happy you came out of it all right Barry. Not everyone was so lucky."

"I thought about joining up myself," Wally said. "But Iris would have skinned me like those rabbits if I had."

"You damn skippy I would have," she said teasingly. "Besides, someone had to take care of pa while I was gone."

"Ain't nobody need to take care of me," Joe said.

"Don't tell lies old man," She said. "You may be better than anyone at tending to crops and hammering nails, but try doing your own laundry for once."

And for the first time, Joe smiled, and Barry began to relax. "All right, I have to admit I don't care to even try," Joe said.

She looked satisfied with herself and it made Barry feel warm inside.

After Breakfast Joe and Wally went out again to work, and Iris stayed behind to tend to the house and garden, but first she wanted to reintroduce Barry to a friend he hadn't seen in a long time. 

Lightning looked the same as when he left, the same shiny black coat and mane, the same big brown eyes, the same gentle whinny at his touch. 

"Thank you," Barry said, he looked over at iris, who looked like a fairy tale princess visiting with her noble steed. "For taking him, I was so afraid I'd never see him again after I left."

She smiled at Barry as she ran her hand along Lightning's strong, muscular back. "Yeah," she said. "I know exactly how you feel."

**Stay Tuned Folks!**

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**_Central City 1865_ **

_Dear Tulip,_

_I apologize for not having written in a while. Much has happened since we corresponded last. Work with Wells is difficult, but you’ll be happy to know he’s been quite fond of the last pages I have sent his way, which is a great relief to me. The house is in fine shape, and I feel I am using this space and what I know to make a small difference in the lives of those society has wronged. Pa is well, so is Wally. I hope that you all are well too, although I’m sure that’s nothing I should worry myself about._

_There is one thing that’s been troubling me lately however. Do you remember the stories I used to tell, of the boy with the books? I’m sure you remember. You may not believe it, but about two weeks ago he showed up on my front yard, as if out of nowhere he was there, scarred and weary but brimming with a sort of joy. I invited him in for breakfast and reminiscing, and he hasn’t left since. I should clarify as that’s not all together true. He leaves every day, to look for work in town, to buy us things for the house, and to sleep at the inn, but just like the hands of a clock he’s back again the next morning. I don’t know how to tell him to move on, that him being here simply isn’t appropriate anymore. I keep trying to find the words, thinking that the current day will be the day, but then I look into his eyes, those sweet, sad eyes and I simply can’t turn him away. He doesn’t have anyone Tulip. I don’t have much but I have the people that I love. I can’t imagine being so alone in the world._

_The truth is I like him here. I thought he would remind me too much of a dark time in my life, but all he brings is light, and laughter. We spend time together in the mornings and he helps with the chores, and we talk about our lives. Then when I’m teaching my lessons he goes to the University to look into Professorships before coming right back for supper. He’d make such a good professor, he’s so bright and lovely to be around. I’m thinking of telling him that I know a certain person who can help, but if I tell him I’m Ghostwriting Wells’ book and Wells finds out, I can lose my job. Technically I shouldn’t even be telling you, but I figure you can’t do much harm all the way out in Texas. I just have to trust that Barry’s education and stamina will be enough. And maybe once he finally has steady work he can get his own place and stop sleeping in the inn every night._

_Last night I got dangerously close to letting him stay over. After supper he started to drift off to sleep on my couch, and I almost didn’t wake him. I almost brought a blanket to cover him with, I almost ran my fingers through his hair just to touch it again, I almost kissed his forehead. I can only imagine what Pa would have done had he found him sleeping on our couch. To say he’s losing patience with the situation would be to imply he had any in the first place. He looks at Barry like an imposter, an enemy, and I don’t know how to convince him otherwise, or even if I should try. I of all people should know he has his reasons to mistrust whites, meaning no offense to your companions of course._

_I don’t mistrust Barry, I never could. Not trusting him isn’t the problem. It’s the world I don’t trust. Surely you must understand how I feel. You were created in an act of violence, not love. Violence is a condition I know just as well. And just because things are better for me now doesn’t mean it’s safe for Barry and I to be together. I know that, I know I should tell him not to come back, but I can’t. I want him to stay and that scares me. Surely it must scare him too. Surely he must know why I don’t fall back into his arms again. What should I do Tulip? My heart and my head are at war and I don’t know which is winning._

_Sincerely,_

_Iris West._

She folded the letter, tucked it in the envelope and sealed it with wax. It was close to eight and she was due at Wells’ office soon to drop off the new pages. Barry had already been gone a few hours, her chances of running into him at the university so late in the day were small. He was probably at the inn, his long body stretched out on the white sheets, his shirt off and his chest rising and falling quietly as he read. She wondered sometimes if those scars were on other parts of his body. She remembered when she used to look at him naked, the little freckles and moles that formed constellations on his pale skin, otherwise completely unblemished back then. She used to count them with her fingers and her lips, and somehow it was always a new number.

For what must have been the 20th time that day she tried to force those thoughts away. The first had come when he’d crouched to milk the cow, his shirt separated from the waist of his pants so she could see the skin of his lower back. The second came when he reached up over her to get butter off the shelf, and she found herself caught between him and the cooking table, feeling the heat from his body. She’d thought about kissing him then, of sliding her hands onto his shoulders and pulling him down to her, and just kissing him for hours and letting the bread burn in the oven. But she hadn’t, she slipped past him and went about her business fixing breakfast. It was hard to slip away, she hadn’t been touched by a man in so long, not since Barry really. There were a few not unwelcome kisses she’d shared with Scott Evans before he left for New York, but she’d never let him or any other man get further than that, for one she was too afraid to let anyone see the scars. She didn’t want to admit to herself what the other reason was.

Tomorrow was going to have to be the day. She had to tell Barry not to come back, to go to Starling, or Philadelphia or anywhere but Central City. But it was his home before it was ever hers wasn’t it? His mother and father had lived there for years, in a big house a few blocks from the Hospital where his father worked. According to Barry a new family lived there now, a husband and wife and two daughters who had no way of knowing the history of the place that used to belong to his family. Barry told her she was the only family he had left, and she wanted to be that for him so badly, to be that warm, safe place. But she couldn’t, and she knew it was going to break his heart. But that was just another thought she’d have to put out of her mind for the moment.

“You heading off this late?” Joe said, leaning into the doorway. He didn’t like her going to the university after dark, but he didn’t stop her, just like he _couldn’t_ stop her from going to spy for the north, an endeavor far more dangerous.

“I am,” she said.

“You ain't coming back with that boy are you?”

“Paaa” she said, a warning.

“I’m just saying, do he live here now or what?”

“He just likes to help, I say let him, it’s been something of a weight off don’t you think?”

“Not that damn much, the boy can’t even lift his left arm proper.”

She walked up to her father and kissed him on the cheek. “He doesn’t live here, I promise.”

“Mm hmm,” he said, not entirely convinced.

“I’ll be back soon.”

****

When she got to Wells’ office she noticed it wasn’t as quiet as usual, she heard his voice through the door, he seemed to be addressing someone but she couldn’t be sure. She decided to knock instead of invite herself in like she’d become accustomed to doing in the past few weeks.

“ _Excuse me, that must be my assistant_ ” he said to whomever he was speaking with. It was how he introduced her in the few occasions they came across other staff members or students, she supposed it was true enough, her job was to assist him, but it still made her swallow hard to hear him say it, to think she may never again be introduced as a writer, an equal.

“Please come in,” he said, and she obeyed, entering the small office with her hand on the clasp of her satchel, she’d hand over the pages and go right on home, practically invisible. But she stopped short and her stomach dropped at the sight of who Wells was speaking with, at the man who’d spent several hours a day in her home for the past few weeks. Wells and Barry, Barry and Wells, sitting across from each other, an empty coffee cup in front of either of them as if they’d been talking for some time.

“Iris,” Barry said, wide eyed, shooting up out of his chair. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same question,” she said, her voice small and hesitant.

“I’m sorry, you two are previously acquainted?” Wells said.

“Yes, Iris is my dear friend from way back,” Barry said with a warm smile. “And your assistant?”

“Yes, for a little over a month now,” Wells said. She didn’t know why it made her so nervous, seeing them together. Maybe because she should have told Barry she knew him, even if she had to leave out some of the details. She thought about telling him many times, but the idea of going from a real writer co running a newspaper to a professor’s assistant, even if it wasn’t completely true, just wasn’t something she felt she could share with him.

“How do you know Dr. Wells?” Iris said.

“Well Mr. Allen and I have been speaking for several days now,” Wells said. “The university has been seeking a professor of chemistry and I as well as several of my fellows believe he is by far the best candidate.”

“I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure, I sent my credentials before I rode into town and they’ve just now been fully processed” Barry said. “But isn’t this fantastic news?”

“It is, truly,” Iris said, and it was, and she wanted to congratulate him fully, with a beaming smile and a warm embrace, but she couldn’t, she couldn’t do any of the things she wanted with him. How was it that she could be so free yet still so trapped? How could they work in the same place, with the same man, and still be so different from each other?

 

“Mr. Wells, I have what you asked for,” she said, trying not to let her voice break. She reached into her satchel and pulled out the large envelope containing the week’s writing’s, she handed it to Wells, spun on her heel and left without another word.

She began to run, down the long corridor and out the science building into the early autumn night air. The chill seemed to hit her harder than it had when she left home less than an hour before, prompting her to hug herself for warmth as she looked for Lightning. She found the tree she’d tied him to outside and went to him. She started to undo the knot but struggled to get him loose, something she’d never had trouble with before. Maybe she should have left him for Barry to find and walk the four miles, he was Barry’s horse after all. In some places it wasn’t even legal for her to ride one.

“Iris,” the sound of Barry’s voice behind her made her flinch and she turned to face him.

“What’s the matter?” he said in a soft voice, stepping closer.

She shook her head bitterly. “I don’t even know, I just don’t know Barry.”

“Yes you do,” he said. “It’s one of those things that I love about you, you always tell me just how you feel, except lately, it’s like you’re staying all quiet about whatever’s inside you.”

She couldn’t let herself cry, she couldn’t. Why didn’t he understand?

“Talk to me,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. It was dark, too dark for anyone to see them, yet she still felt nervous. What if someone did see his hands on her? What would they do? She stepped back, letting his hands fall away.

“I’m never going to…” she started. “Even when I’m somebody I’m nobody.”

“I don’t understand.”

She swiped away the single tear that escaped. “This can’t be, you know that. You have to know.”

“Iris listen I—

“No!” she said, more loudly than she meant to. “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you in my home every morning like… like…”

“Like what?”

“Like this is possible, like it isn’t going to end with one of us hurt or worse. You know it is, you know that’s what happens.”

“We can be careful.”

“That’s just it Barry, we shouldn’t have to be careful. If the world were fair we could just be together, I could have hugged you like I wanted to back there and told you how proud I was of you without having to worry about what Wells would think or whether we’d lose our jobs over it, and he’s one of the good ones. What’s going to happen if one of the bad ones know how we feel? What we are?”

“What are we?” He said, his hand went up to cradle the side of her face and he thumbed away her tears. “Because I’ve kept my distance, I haven’t touched you like I wanted or kissed you like I wanted or any of that, because I didn’t want to force anything you didn’t want.”

She kept shaking her head, like she could deny anything that she felt. She had to deny it because anything else was unthinkable.

“But you want me too, I know you do.”

“What does it matter what I want?” she said, pulling his hand away from her face. “People like me don't get what we want Barry. I don’t get to be a writer, not really, I don’t get to study here without getting looked at like I’m some thing that should go away, I don’t get to be with the man I love.”

“So you do love me?”

“God you don’t listen do you?” she said, hitting his chest with both fists, not enough to hurt, just to get her aggravation across. “What about what you want, huh? Don’t you want to get married, have little babies that look just like you?”

She could almost make out his smile in the dark.

“No,” he said. “I want babies that look like you.”

“You’re so frustrating,” She said breathlessly, tearfully. And before she knew it she was collapsed against his chest, drained, defeated, needing him to hold her and knowing that he shouldn’t, but he did, he let her sob in his arms as he stroked her hair.

“It’s all right, it’s going to be all right I promise.”

“How?”

“Because when you got hurt all those years ago, I promised myself that I would do whatever it took to never let you be hurt again. And I know it didn’t work out quite the way I thought, and we ended up apart for so long, but I’m here now, and all I want is to take care of you.”

It only made her cry harder.

“And you’re not nobody. I don’t ever want to hear you say that. You’re brilliant, I know it, he knows it.”

“What do you mean he knows it?” she said pulling away from him slightly to look into his eyes.

“He talked about you before you came in today, his exact words at one point were ‘I swear my assistant is brighter than most of my colleagues.’”

She looked distantly past him to the soft light flickering in Wells’s window and then back at Barry. His eyes, illuminated only by the soft moonlight, looked into hers so sweetly and sincerely. She should have sent him away when she had the chance, because she simply couldn’t do it now. Her hands slid up onto his shoulders almost with a will of their own.

“What are we going to do Barry?” she said.

“Whatever you want,” he said in almost a whisper. “I’m yours, you can do whatever you want with me, I won’t mind.”

Their noses touched, and her eyes fluttered closed. And for a moment she forgot herself, she forgot reality, she forgot everything but how good it felt to be in his arms. And when he kissed her she didn’t pull away, not again.

 

  **Stay tuned folks!**

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter, next one should be longer.

He kissed her like it had been far more than nine years since the last time, like it had been decades, centuries, millennia. He kissed her like there was nothing else in the world. And she kissed him back, letting her arms wind themselves around his neck, letting him lift her up and turn her around to settle her against the tree. Her legs wrapped around his hips and she could feel his burgeoning excitement against her as his mouth began to travel, hot and wet against her cheek, her jaw, the quickening pulse of her neck.

“Barry,” she sighed, her eyes fluttering closed again when he found a spot on the column of her throat and lingered there, biting gently, sucking just enough to keep from leaving a mark.

“What is it darlin’?” he said, raspy and out of breath, his lips barely leaving her skin long enough to get the words out before landing urgently onto her mouth again, he kissed ravenously, but with a tenderness that made her heart flutter, frantic and deep and caressing, like he wanted her to feel everything he felt without words. Her hands went to cradle his face and she forgot what she wanted to say, opening her mouth instead so he could slide his tongue in, and they stayed kissing like that until they slowed down, the fog cleared in her mind and she remembered again.

“We have to stop,” she said, breaking free, and it was torture to say it. She didn’t want to stop, she never wanted to stop, but they couldn’t forget themselves for too long. If someone got close enough they’d see them despite the dark, and all she could picture were the names, the slurs, the rocks being thrown, or worse, so much worse.

Fortunately he didn’t argue, he set her down on her feet, tucked back a few strands of hair that had come loose around her face and fastened a button that had come undone on her jacket during their activity.

“There,” he said with a whisper and a half smile. “Just like new.”

He leaned down to kiss her once on the nose, and it made her want to forget herself again.

“I don’t want this to end,” she said, laying a soft hand on his chest. He grasped it in his. “Not again.”

“Never,” he said.

“But it has to” she said. She realized her voice was breaking. “Eventually it has to.”

“Sweetheart I’m right here,” he said. “I’ll always be here, whether you want to be friends, or lovers or whatever else. I’m here.”

She smiled up at him, but inside everything was twisted around. It wasn’t fair to either of them, they both deserved to be with someone they could love freely. But she didn’t want anyone else, she never had. And maybe that was just it, maybe Barry had never wanted anyone else either.

When they were children she never thought they’d end up there. She didn’t know where they would end if she were being honest. She sometimes fantasized about running away with him, of building a fine ship to traverse the seven seas, one she could captain with Barry as her first mate. She wouldn’t sail in chains again. Although she never had in the first place. She was born in America, just like Barry.

“Let me take you home,” he said.

She shook her head. “It’s all right, I can manage. I don’t want you going out all that way just to turn back around.”

“I insist,” he said, he began to undo the knot holding Lightning to the tree, and she decided not to argue anymore.

They rode their horses side by side, their lanterns lighting the way. They were quiet as they rode, but it wasn’t a bad silence, they could hear the cicadas singing in the distance and the light clomping of hooves on the dirt road. She thought of going faster, at the rate they were traveling she wouldn’t be home until well after ten, but it wasn’t uncommon for her to get home late from the university. On nights when Wells felt up to it they’d go over the pages together, a task that usually took two or more hours. She may not have been a student, but with the amount of studying she did she certainly felt like one at times.

She glanced over at her traveling companion, the peaceful look on his face made her smile. He had so few reasons to look peaceful. He’d just come back from one of the most brutal wars in recorded history, to a woman who couldn’t offer her love to him the way war brides receiving their men were wont to do. She never wished she were white, or that Barry was black, she didn’t want to change either of them. It was everyone else she wanted to change.

And as she heard the sound of a third horse coming up behind them she wished that all the more. She hated the fear, not knowing whether another traveler on the road was harmless or dangerous. All she knew was that it was time to go faster. She tapped lightning’s sides with her boots and Barry did the same.

“Hey hey hey now, where you rushing off to?” a familiar voice called from behind her. The third horse started to speed up too until he passed them up and ran out in front of them, blocking the way. Ophelia and Lightning both halted, their shoes skidding slightly on the dirt. "What's going on here?"

“I don’t know this man,” Iris said. “We just happen to be traveling the same way, that’s all.”

“Is that right?” Anthony said, holding his lantern up, illuminating his oily grin. Luckily he hadn’t been by since Barry started spending time at the house, as far as she knew this was the first time they’d encountered each other.

“That’s right,” Barry said.

“Then why’d you go rushing off like that the same time?”

She swallowed hard. She wanted to reach for Barry’s hand, but she knew she couldn’t, she held Lighting’s reins tighter instead.

“Pure coincidence,” Barry said. “Hear another horse on the road this time of night one tends to get a little agitated. You could be an axe killer for all I know.”

“That’s right, just spooked us is all,” Iris said.

“Well I assure you I’m on the right side of the law, just had to make sure nothing… sinister was going on here. Although sir I must say, I wouldn’t blame you a bit if it did, she sure is pretty. I thought about stealing me a taste from time to time, taking her in the woods and just having me a good ‘ol time. You know I hear they can take just about anything you can do to ‘em, _anything_ , ain’t that something?”

She glanced at Barry, his jaw was tight and eyes were dark. She didn’t want him to defend her, even though she knew how badly he wanted to. Defending her would only make things worse. She could see the gun hanging at Anthony’s hip plain as day.

“Well sir I appreciate the concern but it’s about time I head on home,” Barry said, his tone shorter and angrier than his words.

“I just have to wonder, what you doing heading out toward the Keystone anyhow?” Anthony said “Only colored folk live there.”

“I don’t live in the Keystone,” Barry said. “I’m sure I don’t even know what that is. I’m settled out in Jump.”

“Jump?” Anthony said. “That’s quite a ways.”

“bout 50 miles by my calculation,” Barry said. “I was just out here seeing about a University job.”

“Well I s’pose I shouldn’t keep you then,” Anthony said. At that he tipped his hat and started the opposite way, probably headed for the tavern.

 “Oh one more thing,” Anthony said, turning back before they could rush off. “You be careful all right, not everyone ‘round here is nice as I am.”

They sat there in silence as Anthony’s horse galloped away, waiting until the glow of his lantern disappeared and the clomping of hooves could no longer be heard before they started off again.

“Are you all right?” He asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve heard worse believe me.”

“I could’ve killed that sonofabitch,” Barry said.

“I know, I know you wanted to do something. But if your aim is to protect me you acted exactly as you should have.”

“Do you think he knew?” Barry said.

“No, I don’t,” Iris said. “But maybe stay clear of the house the next few days.”

He nodded sharply and reluctantly. And they continued down the road.

 

She missed Barry after only the first day, the first morning really. After making and eating breakfast with him for two straight weeks it felt instantly lonelier at the table without him. She made black eyed peas, neckbones and Barry’s favorite, Johnny cake with butter and jam. The morning was cool and quiet, the Sun obscured by thick clouds, and Pa and Wally didn’t look like they were in any mood to work that day.

“Can’t wait until Sunday,” Wally said. “I ain’t doing a damn thing Sunday.”

“You and me both,” Joe said, extending his coffee cup for Wally to tap against his.

“What about you? Wells giving you the day off or what?”

She heard him on some level, but it was like being under water or half asleep.

“Iris? You good?”

Her eyes flickered to Wally and she forced a small smile.

“No… I mean yes, I’ll be home all day Sunday.”

“What’s the matter?” Wally said. “And where’s your friend?”

“Don’t question the Lord’s will Wallace,” Joe said.

“I’m just saying, he’s been like your white shadow the past two weeks, where he at?”

He was at the inn, all by himself because Anthony Woodward ruined everything.

“He’s getting himself ready for work I s’pose,” she said.

“Work? Good, maybe now that he got himself a job he can make his own breakfast,” Joe said.

“Pa you know he’s been buying food for us every day since he’s been here,” she said.

“As if we need the charity” Joe said.

“It ain’t charity, and be honest, if he didn’t help at all you’d be complaining about that too, you know you would.”

Joe remained silent as he shoveled another forkful of peas into his mouth.

“Well, Iris likes him well enough,” Wally said shrugging. “He ain’t ever bother me none either.”

“He bother me plenty,” Joe said.

“Yeah, you made that awful clear Pa,” Iris said.

“I just don’t see why he don’t move on already,” Joe said.

“His family’s dead, he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“He white, he can go wherever he damn well pleases.”

“Pa!” Iris snapped, slamming her fist on the table, tense and angry. She hadn’t meant to raise her voice, it had just been building for too long.

“Don’t you raise your voice to me in my house,” Joe said.

“It’s our house, we paid for it together, we built it together” she said. “And why don’t we stop wasting time and you admit what you’re really mad about? You’re not mad at Barry, you’re mad because Scott wanted to marry me and I said no, that’s all this is about.”

Joe looked like his blood was starting to simmer, Wally looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Scott Evans is a good man Iris, he could have given you a good life.”

“I gave myself a good life,” Iris said. “And Scott _is_ a good man, which is why he deserves to be with a woman who loves him. That was never going to be me.”

“And why the hell not?” Joe said, dropping his fork on his half eaten plate.

“Because he was impossible for one, always having to have the last word about every little thing, never taking the time to enjoy anything, constantly mad at the world.”

“And don’t he have a right to be? Don’t we all?” Joe said.

“Maybe we do, but to tell you the truth Pa I’m tired of being angry. I want to be with someone who makes me happy.”

She couldn’t believe she’d said all of that, and about Barry of all people. But it was achingly true. She’d been happier in the past two weeks than she had been in years. It was so easy with Barry that she forgot how utterly difficult it was at the same time. He made her laugh, made her smile, made her forget that most of the rest of the world hated her, while Scott had taken every opportunity to remind her, unintentionally maybe, but he had all the same.

“Are you saying you love that boy?” Joe said.

A lump started to form in her throat and her eyes began to glisten. She hated fighting with her father, she loved him more than anything, but she loved Barry too, and one love couldn’t make her forget the other. She nodded sharply, and the look on her father’s face at the gesture nearly broke her heart in two.

“I’m sorry, suddenly I’m not very hungry,” Joe said, standing up from his chair and leaving without another word.

She just sat there for a moment, not knowing what to do, whether to go after him or not. It probably wouldn't have made a difference if she did, her father wasn't easily reasoned with. His mind was every bit as hard to break down as his body. She looked at Wally, hoping that if he had anything negative to say about Barry, or the way she felt about him, that he'd keep it to himself, at least until she was done crying. But instead her brother set his big, dark eyes on her, and reached out for her hand.

“It’s all right Iris, it’s all right that you love him,” he said.

“No it isn’t,” she said, the tears spilling over. “I shouldn’t love him, but I can’t stop.”

“Shh, it’s all right.” He moved his seat closer and put an arm around her. “Do you think God wants us to be fighting each other like this? No that’s just the way they twist His words around. He wants us to be loving each other, that’s the way all this is going to get fixed you know.”

She nodded and tried to smile.

“Besides,” Wally said. “He loves you too, I can tell. He looks at you like the way Pa used to look at momma all the time. That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

“I want that for you too,” Iris said.

“Well, you may not have to wait long, I got my eye on some of them white girls in town.”

“Wally, if you don’t hush,” she said, breaking out from under Wally’s arm and swatting the boy playfully.

“I’m only foolin’,” he said with a laugh.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, she was happy to have her brother, to have someone to understand her. She didn't know if her father ever would.

“You think Pa’ll ever forgive me?” she said, wiping beneath her eyes.

“There ain’t a thing to forgive,” Wally said. "But yeah, if he really loves you, and I know he does, he'll come around"

She hoped more than anything for that to be true.

 

**Stay Tuned Folks!**

 

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

She was sitting in the library, scratching the nib of her fountain pen along a sheet of paper. She sat alone. The students kept their distance, leaving the seats around her table and the adjacent ones empty. They opted instead to violate her with stares and whispers, yet she remained so focused, like there was nothing in the world but her, the pen and the paper. He hadn’t been back to the house in over a week, so to see here there, as if conjured from his restless imagination was something to thank The Lord above for. He’d taught his first class that day, and the need to tell her every last detail nearly overwhelmed him.

He went to her table to sit, paying no mind to the heightened whispers. He was a professor, Iris was an assistant and nobody had to know that they were anything more to each other. Although if he could, he’d shout it loud enough for the whole world to hear. There was no shame in his feelings, only pride.

“Professor Allen,” she said, looking up at him from her writing only briefly. She subtly moved her arm to block her work from his view, making him all the more curious about it, but he wouldn’t pry if that was her wish.

“Miss West,” he said, matching her businesslike tone.

“I hear your first class was a rousing success,” she said. “Wells told me.”

“Well I wouldn’t call it rousing.”

“You are entirely too humble.”

He knew he was blushing, and if her smile was anything to go by, she saw it too. He settled himself by discussing the details of his lecture as she nodded along, listening intently. He wasn’t always adept at making chemistry interesting to her, but he seemed to be doing a reasonably good job, or perhaps she was simply proud of him.

“It’s quite a good feeling, to impart wisdom, I’m sure you know.”

“That I do, and Central City University is lucky to have you,” she said before returning to her work.

After a few silent moments his eyes lit up with a plan brewing. He opened his satchel and removed his own pen, a small well of ink and a sheet of parchment. As she continued to work silently he opened the well, dipped his pin into the ink and scrawled three words onto the paper. He blew on the ink to dry it and folded the sheet in half before sliding it forward.

She looked back and forth to make sure no one was watching. They all seemed to be facing each other at that point, gossiping quietly among themselves. She unfolded and glanced at the paper quickly.

_I miss you_

Once read she gave him an affectionate, slightly exasperated smile. He watched as she wrote something beneath his words, blew to dry it, folded it back and passed it forward.

_It has been only a week_

And he went on to write

_A week too long, please meet me in in the archives basement five minutes from now. We will not be seen, I assure you._

When she read his words, she folded the paper closed again, hid it beneath her work and nodded yes.

He struggled to mask his excitement as he started out of his chair, but before he could get far he saw a student making her way toward him. It was Rosalind Dillon, who’s name he remembered because she was the only woman in his class of fifty, and because she asked frequent questions.

“Professor Allen, I was hoping to find you here.”

“Ms. Dillon,” He said.

“You remember my name already, I must say I’m deeply flattered,” her cheeks reddened, and he looked at Iris reflexively. She didn’t appear threatened, and if she had he would have reassured her that he had no plans to stray.

“Ms. West this is Rosalind Dillon from my chemistry class, Rosalind this is Iris West, she’s an assistant to the Department head.”

“I know who she is Professor,” She said with a hint of a sneer. “And you don’t have to talk to her.”

He promised Iris that he wouldn’t run to her defense, that he’d let these things pass. But it felt too wrong, to be passing affectionate notes one moment, and ignoring her mistreatment the next. Besides, that time there was no gun.

“As a faculty member of this fine institution I must say, I have little appreciation for my students telling me what I can and can not do,” he said.

“Oh, I only meant—

“I know what you meant Ms. Dillon, and I would think a woman as bright as yourself wouldn’t harbor such backward ideas.”

Surprisingly, Rosalind only smiled, and took a step closer. “You’re one of those bleeding hearts aren’t you? That’s quite precious, really.”

“Was there something of substance you wished to ask me Ms. Dillon? Because I assure you I have no time for the present conversation.”

He glanced at Iris, hoping she didn’t look upset, and he breathed an inward sigh of relief when he saw that she appeared to be exactly the opposite. Her lips were slightly turned up at the corners as she commenced with her writing, looking down and scrawling across the page with short, quick strokes.

“I only had a question about today’s lecture,” Rosalind said, her voice a bit smaller. “Is alcohol a base or an acid?”

“Both,” Iris said, not looking up from her work.

“I’m sure I didn’t ask you,” said Rosalind. “Professor Allen?”

“Both, not unlike water,” he said, satisfied at the dejection on her face at the answer.

“Well,” she said. “I suppose I should write that down. I’ll see you tomorrow professor.”

As Rosalind turned to rejoin her group he sat across from Iris again, and they remained silent until Rosalind and her friends cleared the table, leaving them alone.

“Just couldn’t help yourself could you?” she whispered, her expression playful.

“Neither could you,”

“But maybe we should wait a while, for the archives,” she said. “After your next class perhaps?”

He had no desire to wait, he’d waited for her a week, after first waiting for her nine years, he was sure that he would die if he didn’t kiss her again soon. Still he nodded in agreement, and immediately began counting the seconds.

 

The archive basement was a dark, chilly, forgotten hole in the ground that few ventured into. The books and pamphlets housed there were more for the purpose of preserving history than educating modern students, still, it was the only place on campus Barry wished to be. He lit a candle and set it on a stone mantle haphazardly stacked with books meant to be filed, and he blew warm air into his hands. After only one or two minutes he became impatient for the warmth of Iris’s body against his, after several more he began to worry that she wouldn’t come.

Perhaps they had been a little too flippant in their encounter with Rosalind Dillon, although according to Iris it wasn’t the first time a student had been reprimanded for speaking to her out of turn. Central City University was a progressive place of study, and while most of the professors were cold and dismissive of her, others, like Wells, Professor Palmer in Physics, and Professor Schott in Mathematics, at least made some effort to defend her when they could. Aside from The Keystone, the university was the safest place for her in Central City.

When he heard the heavy door open, his heart felt as if it doubled in speed. He could barely make her face out in the dimness of the room, but she sighed his name wistfully at the sight of him and the surprise of the cold, and he knew it was her. He took her hands and pulled her against him, and she crashed her mouth onto his before he could kiss her first. For a length of time he couldn’t place, they became lost in the hurried push and pull of their lips against each other, once he'd gone for long enough in one direction, he tilted his head the other way, brushing noses and touching foreheads. There was nothing in the world as good or as pure as being with her that way, without words and without rules.

“I missed you,” her voice shook as she pulled away, her body was shaking too. He ran his hands up and down her arms to warm her, although he had a feeling it wasn’t the cold making her tremor. She stood right against him, and rested her hands on his waist.

“I don’t know how you stand it,” he said in almost a whisper, grazing his knuckles against her cheek. “I just, I don’t know if I could.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “You would if you had to, I get angry sometimes, so angry  I can barely breathe, but I do. I keep breathing and I keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I hold on like hell to the good things.”

“Good things, like your family?”

“My family, and my house, and this…”

She kissed him again, deeper, cradling the back of his head as his arms wrapped around her waist. If kissing him was a good thing, one of those things that she had to hold onto, then he wouldn’t stop until he ran out of breath.

She was like that for him when they were young. He remembered her running her rough but loving hands up his bruised ribs while she’d kiss his busted lips. He remembered crying himself to sleep with his head in her lap. He never felt like he deserved her comfort, but he accepted it because he needed it more than anything in the world, it kept him alive for years.

“I fiercely love you,” He whispered with a sort of desperation as he parted from her, once again feeling the truth of it hit him like a strong wind.

“I love _you_ ,” she said, but there was something sad in her voice, something unlike her.

“What is it?” He said.

She let out a deep, acquiescing sigh and opened her mouth to speak. “I told my Pa, He hasn’t said a word to me since Barry.”

He swallowed hard, he couldn’t say he misunderstood. What father wouldn’t wish to protect his own from the people who had so badly hurt them in the past? He would have to convince him that he was different, that was how it had to be. It was time to return to the West House.

 

 

The next day, after his last class, he rode the four miles to the Keystone, telling himself all the while that if he ran into anyone that had reason to suspect him, that he’d turn back around and try again another time. But the ride was relatively peaceful. If he was being followed whoever did the following kept a much lower profile than the beast on the horse he’d encountered the week before. It was after sundown by the time he reached the house. He tied his horse, ascended the four steps leading to the front door, and took several deep breaths before raising his fist to knock.

He was startled as the door swung open before he could make his presence known, and he backed away a few steps as Joe West stepped onto the porch. He was an intimidating man, he always had been, and his intense stare caused Barry to stumble backwards off of the top stair, and land on the dirt.

“Barry!” Iris said, darting out past her father and going to him.

“Go back inside Iris, I got words for the boy,” Joe said.

“Whatever you need to say to him you can say to me,” Iris said, holding his arm protectively.

“It’s all right my love,” Barry whispered to her. “I came to speak with him.”

She looked hesitant, her gaze darting between Barry and her father for several seconds. She helped him up off of the ground and reluctantly returned to the house.

“Just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

“No sir."

“Well that make you a selfish bastard in my book.”

He looked at the front window to see Iris staring out at him, he gave her a reassuring smile and focused back on Joe.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But I’m a selfish bastard who loves your daughter. I mean that sincerely, I love her more than anything.”

“Think I believe that? If you love Iris you’d want her safe. You being here, it ain’t safe and I think you know that. But long as it’s safe for you, right?”

“No,” he said, his heart starting to pound, a lump forming in his throat. But he couldn’t find any other words. “No.”

“Look I know you think you some special, good-hearted white man, but I know better, if it came between your own life and hers, you’d choose yours every time. You think your parents were any different?”

“Do not speak ill of my parents sir,” Barry said firmly.

“I remember ‘em well, they came and visited with all us poor little negroes, acting all high and mighty and talking ‘bout justice and fairness while they gladly ate the food we cooked and slept in the beds we made.”

“They weren’t infallible,” Barry said, hot tears running over his bottom lashes. “But they were good.”

“There ain’t no good in any of you. You think you good, but when it comes between you or us, you pick you, every single time.”

“That isn’t true,” he raised his voice, he’d never once raised his voice to Joe, but it wasn’t in anger, just frustration, the need for him to understand. “I would die for her.”

He meant it, he meant every word of it, but meaning it wasn’t enough to make Joe know it too.

“It’s much more likely that she’ll be the one dying for you you keep this up, and I think you know that.”

He couldn’t hear anymore. He simply couldn’t. Joe was wrong, thoroughly wrong, but… was he really? Was anything he was saying without merit? Barry didn’t like to consider that he might be right. If Joe was right then that was the end of Barry’s life as he knew it. He lived without Iris for nine years but it was no kind of life, merely survival, the only thing driving him on all those years was the hope that one day they’d find each other again. If he had to give Iris up forever, he’d go through the rest of his life a shell of a man. But Iris could have a chance. There was no chance with him, no marriage, no children, no loving each other out of the shadows. A life with him would be a life of secrets and constant fear, it was no kind of life.

He tried to shake the thought away, he couldn’t entertain it. Iris loved him too, that was the way of it. If they were to part, it would have to be her decision as well.

“You can’t ask me to leave her,” he said. “She loves me.”

“And she did fine without you for years, what make you think she can’t make it without you this time?”

 _“All right, that’s enough!”_ He watched as Iris ran out of the house again, meeting Barry’s side and taking his hand. He knew on some level she’d been eavesdropping, but he didn’t know just how much she heard “Stop it, just stop.”

“Iris—

“No!” she said again, so forcefully it even gave Joe pause. “You’re my father, and I love you dearly, but you cannot dictate my life.”

“I’m trying to keep you safe,” Joe said.

“I’m not,” she said “With or without Barry I’m not safe. I’m not safe anywhere as long as I look the way I do. But you know what, I have to live in spite of that. Why can’t you just let me?”

“Because this ain’t right Iris,” Joe said. “It’s wrong.”

“Who says it’s wrong? Besides all of those white people you can’t stand? What, you agree with them now is that it?”

“Iris I—

“I’m so tired of living my life according to what they want, to hell with every last one of them. If I’m going to die, I’m going to do it knowing I went after every last thing I wanted.”

“You won’t,” Barry said softly, squeezing her hand. “I won’t let you.”

“Pa, Barry is going to come in for supper, and you don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to, but you’re damn well going to talk to me. You’re going to ask me about my week, and I’m going to ask you about yours, and we’re going to laugh about it and act like a Goddamn family, because you’re the only one I have and I’m not giving you up over this nonsense, I refuse.”

She let go of Barry’s hand and gathered her dress in front to climb the stairs to the porch. Barry didn’t know what to do or say, and clearly neither did Joe, they only stood there, like stones, staring but not staring.

 _“Come the hell on already!”_ Iris shouted from the doorway.

And they stood for a few moments more, before Joe finally spoke.

“After you,” he said darkly. “Boy.”

And as Barry walked ahead of Joe, a smile reached his lips. There was no fighting it, he would love that woman forever.

**Stay Tuned Folks!**

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas my friends, enjoy the calm before the drama.

**Iris West, Somewhere in Mississippi, 1864**

Dear Pa,

I pray that you both are well, and this letter has found you most expeditiously. I am aware that you are still angry with me for leaving, I have no illusions about that, but this is the time of year for putting aside one’s differences and offering glad tidings, so I am doing just that. I still so fondly remember our first Christmas in Central City, how we huddled in that cramped attic as the snow fell in punishing droves outside our window, only a skinny chicken and a half bottle of bourbon for sustenance . We piled on every article of clothing we respectively owned and gathered around the weak flame of our stove, still not able to command our bodies against shivering. Yet we were happy, because we had each other, and for the first time we had the hope of something greater out in front of us.

That was the first year I’d ever seen snow. I thought it looked like sugar falling from the sky, and I found myself so torn between my appreciation for its beauty and hatred for its inconvenience, wanting both to curse it back up to where it came and go outside and twirl around in it until my fingers grew numb. And Momma always did look so lovely coming in from a long day of work with the white powder clinging to her hair, didn’t you think so? I miss her terribly, especially this time of year. I miss the way she used to sing to me as she’d braid my hair. I miss her smile, always so charming and easy even as the rest of her was tired and heavy. I miss her calm voice and strong hands, I miss her advice. But I still feel nothing but fortunate that I still have you and Wally to return home to, and I want nothing more than to spend Christmas next year in the home we all built together. The thought of you is the only thing that has kept me going through the hellscape that is this war.

Do not misunderstand, I am unharmed, but I can not say the same for many who have laid down their lives for the promise of liberty for us all. As I write this, I have taken shelter in a safe house, the location of which I cannot say. Along with my companions and I are two families we liberated during our mission. Earlier this evening I read to the children from a fairy tale book, and they seemed unable to grasp the concepts of wishes being granted, dreams coming true, and evil being held accountable. But perhaps that is for the best, as we know, nothing is truly accomplished without hard work, patience and perseverance. I like to think the children will come to understand that, and one day be as fortunate as we have found ourselves in spite of our many troubles. But although they have little to do with the world as we know it to be, stories are certainly nice to escape into from time to time. Before we had anything else we had stories.

I hope that you are staying warm this Christmas, that you are reading this letter in front of the stove while a grand feast prepares, and creating stories of your own that will be told for years to come.

Always,

Your Iris

P.S. Please dispose of this letter immediately as I pray you have the others.

 

**Central City, December 1865**

Winter had arrived so stealthily on the heels of an unseasonably warm Autumn, Iris found herself surprised to wake up to the bitter cold that greeted her on the last sunday of December, the day before Christmas. She glanced at her woodburning stove, situated close enough to warm her, yet far enough to prevent any unfortunate accidents, and realized nary a spark had survived the night. The cold had penetrated her coverings so thoroughly it was as if they no longer existed and she futilely wrapped them tighter around herself as she sat up in the enveloping dark. She fumbled around on her nightstand, finding a box of matches and a candlestick.

"Dammit!” she cursed loudly, her first attempt to strike one beneath the small table broke the matchstick in half and the useful end fell through her shaky fingers. She attempted it again, that time successfully, and lit the candle, bathing the room in a dim glow.

She huffed at the air in front of her to watch it transform into a disheartening puff of vapor, and realized even if the flame of her stove had persisted, it likely wouldn’t have made much difference against the first snowfall of the year. To confirm her suspicion about the state of the weather, her gaze reached the small window. It was coated in an opaque sheet of ice, obscuring the view of the trees usually visible right outside her room, she could only see the shadow of the rapid flurry. 

Iris set her feet on the floor, and found that the wood was so chilled she could feel it through her wool socks, worn and thinned with age. In response she shoved her feet into her slippers before going to the window. She took the corner of the blanket and used it to wipe the condensation from the inside of the pane, but it made little difference in her ability to see. It was still dark out, no later than five or six in the morning. Pa and Wally would probably be sleeping for several more hours as they were wont to do on Sundays, provided the cold didn’t shock them awake as well. Although she was far slighter than either of them, and more vulnerable to the lower temperature. After the first couple of winters in Central City, her father and brother were all but used to it, to the point where they could hunt and perform other outdoor chores with gloveless hands as if such habits weren’t pure lunacy. 

She squinted her eyes in an attempt to focus her vision, to not much avail. The only thing visible was a light flickering at the corner of the pane. In her groggy waking she wondered if it was a lightning bug come to visit her, then immediately remembered what Barry told her about lightning bugs when they were children.

“When it’s cold like this they stop flying,” Barry had said when she expressed her disappointment over their absence one autumn night in Georgia, one of the few that could have been described as cold.

After a few passing moments allowed her sense to return to her, she realized the light was not small and close, but rather large and distant, a lantern, most likely held by an early morning visitor. There was only one person who’d show up in front of her home at such an ungodly hour, and at the thought she tried to keep her smile at bay. It would be difficult to reprimand Barry for showing up at her house so early when she had an ear to ear grin on her face. But it had been far too many days since she’d seen him for more than a few passing moments, as busy as they’d both been recently, him with grading final coursework, her with writing, teaching and helping to prepare the house for the winter, although the latter task seemed almost futile when finally faced with the first snow. How much worse off would she have been had she not taken the time to seal every crack in the walls and patch every moth eaten blanket and sweater? 

She plucked the candle off of her nightstand and sprinted out of her room, down the stairs and out the front door. The temperature inside was practically tropical compared to  the barrage of icy wind, carrying the snow with it in chaotic swirls. She wrapped the blanket tighter around herself with her free arm and peered through the potential blizzard, realizing once she spotted Barry that he was walking in the opposite direction.

“Barry?” she called loud enough for her voice to carry over the whistling wind. He turned to face her as if startled, as if he wasn’t expecting her to meet him.

“Iris,” he walked up to her, ascending the stairs with his lantern in hand. “You should go back inside.”

“You’re a madman Bartholomew Allen,” she said, ignoring his warning. “What are you doing here? Where’s your horse?”

“I took a carriage, I couldn’t bother Ophelia with the extra weight.”

“What extra weight?”

He glanced down near her feet and she followed his gaze. There was some sort of device placed near the door, standing higher than her knee and covered in waxed canvas.

“You have no fireplace,” he said. “But the gas heater from the Inn works like a dream, and I got it for a bargain.”

She looked at him, her heart sinking at the nearly purple color his cheeks and the tip of his nose had taken on, then she looked back down at the heater. She’d wanted one for some time, but never had the means to accommodate the purchase.

“You came all the way here to bring me a heater, in this?” 

“I swear to you it wasn’t nearly this bad when I left,” he said. “And I apologize, I didn't mean to wake you, I thought I’d leave it as a surprise.”

How could he possibly be apologizing? She thought to herself. 

“You did no such thing” she said, her voice shaking more and more with each word. “It was the cold that woke me, not you, although I reckon I might have felt your presence.”

He smiled tightly, clearly more bothered by the wind and snow than he wanted to let on.

“I ought to go,” he said. “If I don’t meet the carriage in ten minutes he’ll leave without me.”

“Let him leave then,” she said, she turned to set the candle on the inn table right near the door. “Help me get this contraption inside would you? Although we can wait for pa to wake up if you don’t want to trouble that shoulder.”

“It’s no trouble,” he said, setting the lantern down on the ground and picking up the heater. Although he grimaced slightly at the effort he seemed more than capable of handling its weight.

Barry had only been in Iris’s room once before, to assist her in carrying up wood for her stove, but he seemed to have no qualms about entering again, even considering Iris’s state of undress. And the thought of him in her bedroom, while she wore only her night clothes and a blanket around her shoulders, excited her in a way she couldn’t describe. The truth was something had been building within her since she saw him again, perhaps even before, a feeling as wild and untameable as it was well-hidden. Every time they touched hands while preparing meals together, or held each other’s gaze across the library, every time she so much as spoke his name she felt that familiar stirring. Kissing only exacerbated those feelings, to the point where after a particularly heated session in the archives basement, Iris found herself unable to return straight home from the university, instead electing to visit a medicine shop for a particularly scandalous reason.

She had ventured into the shop as if she’d gotten lost, immediately catching the attention of the young woman sorting elixirs for various ailments along the shelf.

“May I help you miss?” Said the woman, too patrician and undeniably beautiful to be working such a position. She had a cool, crisp voice, scrubbed of any hint of country drawl, a northerner from birth. Suddenly Iris felt sheepish and wrong. She expected someone with a tad more grit, someone who’d heard every request that could possibly be made and held no more room for surprise. The shop was on the outskirts of town, where the true rustics tended to gravitate. There was nothing at all rustic about the woman behind the counter. Still, Iris had ventured quite a ways to go home empty handed. At the very least she was grateful that the shop was otherwise secluded, and that the woman behind the counter hadn’t immediately sneered at her color.

“I’ve come in want of a…” Iris started, trying to keep her nerve intact. She took a couple of short strides toward the counter until she was right up against it, close enough to whisper. “I need a womb veil.”

The woman’s expression remained still, and Iris felt the need to qualify her statement.

“For my mistress,” Iris added, and even pretending to be at the beck and call of some imaginary white woman made her feel just the slightest bit sick, but she had a feeling the lie would be necessary.

“Your Mistress?” the woman added.

“She’s got herself five children, I imagine she’s not too keen on making a sixth,” Iris explained.

“Hmm,” the woman murmured. Iris found her expression hard to read.

“Are you married, by any chance?” Iris said, unable to take the silence.

“Once,” she said, a hint of sadness reaching her eyes.

“Any children?” 

“You’re certainly curious.”

“I’m sure you get all manner of strange questions, I can’t be the first.”

“No children,” she answered.

“Well I suppose you wouldn’t know quite how to relate,” Iris said. “But five is certainly enough by her account.”

The woman stepped onto a ladder and returned to sorting things on the shelf as she continued to speak, her voice even cooler than before.

“That’s where the trouble lies,” she said. “I don’t believe you serve anyone Miss…

“West,” Iris said, her pulse quickening.

“Miss west, you have far too much spirit and too quick a tongue for any ‘mistress’ to tolerate, you didn’t have to speak a word, it’s all over your face, it’s in the way you stand and walk.”

Iris considered turning to leave, although she couldn’t necessarily disagree with anything being said, nor could she properly discern whether she was being insulted or complimented.

“You can have what you’re asking for Miss West, but the pretense is by no means necessary,” at that she stepped down from the ladder and disappeared behind a thick curtain, she reappeared a few moments later with a small box, setting it on the counter. She named the price and Iris produced the money wordlessly.

“If you should find yourself here again, don’t come to anyone besides me, you’ll receive no assistance whatsoever, except perhaps a prolonged lecture on your moral failings,” she said. 

“And who might you be? In case I need to ask?”

“Mrs. Raymond, Cait Raymond.”

Iris had left the shop without a clue as to when or if she’d get any use out of her new purchase.

 

That was nearly three weeks ago, now Barry was in her room, with a gift just because he knew she might need it. Pa and Wally were fast asleep, and the space was growing warmer by the minute on account of Barry lighting the heater, considerably more effective than her old stove.

“Well that’s that,” Barry said, clearly proud of his quick work “I suppose I should wait downstairs until the light comes, perhaps another carriage will be--

She buried his words in her kiss, her frigid hands dropping her blanket and grabbing hold of his jacket, damp with snow. He’d freeze if he didn’t get out of his wet clothes, although his comfort was far from the only thing on her mind as she shoved the garment off of his thin shoulders.

“Iris?”

“I don’t want you to wait downstairs,” she said, her voice soft and husky. “I want you to stay right here.”

His face looked slightly confused in the soft light provided by the heater.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, not giving him a chance to respond. She went into her washroom and found her purchase. She’d read the simple instructions it came with far more times than needed, and found it easy to insert the device before she grew too cold in the unheated room. She returned a moment later and embraced Barry again, kissing his mouth, his jaw, his cheeks, every surface her lips could find.

“Iris, do tell me what you’re intending,” He said, his voice still hesitant even as he kissed her back and placed his hands on her body.

“I’m intending for you to lay with me,” she explained. She looked at his face to process his expression. His eyes were wide and nearly hopeful, and he didn’t remove his hands from her waist. “It’ll warm me faster than the heater, not that I don’t appreciate it.”

They continued kissing, although Iris couldn’t help but notice how he held back. He always kissed with such ferocity, such passion, but it was as if he was suddenly afraid of breaking her by pressing too hard.

“It’s all right,” she insisted. “We can’t marry, no use in waiting for something that can’t be.”

“I wish for nothing more than to marry you Iris.”

“I know,” she said. “But why don’t you just pretend for now? Can you do that for me?”

She grew impatient as he appeared to consider her request silently.

“I purchased a womb veil,” she said as if to give him one final push. “So you don’t have to worry yourself about that if you were.”

After a few more moments, something mischievious reached his eyes and she nearly squealed as he swept her up in his arms. Clearly his reservations had been the same as hers, as much as Iris wanted children one day, it was impossible to consider now, not without having to ask herself many questions that she didn’t wish to ask.

He laid her down on the bed and kissed her properly, deep and with urgency, and his hands, still cold but not unpleasant against her skin, found the tie on her nightgown. He unlaced it hurriedly but skillfully, exposing the skin of her heaving chest and pressing soft kisses there. The contact made her shiver in a good way for the first time that morning, and she sat up to let him get her the rest of the way out of her nightdress.

“You are undoubtedly the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, taking in the sight of her bare breasts, illuminated by the soft light. It was almost unnerving the way he stared, as if seeing into her very soul. But she couldn’t deny that he was beautiful too, hard to look away from for even an instant, although his green eyes carried a certain weariness that hadn’t been there before. She pressed her lips against his again, readier for him than ever, the aching between her thighs growing with every passing moment. But as his hands found her body again, sliding from her waist to the crosshatch of raised scars on her back, she flinched away almost through no will of her own.

“I’m sorry,” he said in nearly a whisper.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I just, I forget sometimes. Then… then I remember.”

“Does it hurt you at all?”

She shook her head. “No, not any more, just little tingles every now and again.

She silently cursed herself for even mentioning it, ready as she was for her lover to touch her in ways she desperately needed to be touched. She shook her head as if shaking away the past and kissed him again, not allowing him to say anything more about it.

She started at getting him out of his shirt. It had been far too long since she saw what was beneath it. What had so many years done to him? How had the war left its evidence upon his body?

She stared upon Barry quietly. The shell that had went through his shoulder had left a scar the shape of a massive, misshapen starburst, as if his skin had been torn in numerous directions and sewn back together. She pressed her lips against it and his hand reached up to cradle the back of her head, letting her curls wrap around his fingers.

“Do you have dreams?” She whispered against his skin. “The ones where you think you’re there, you can’t tell the difference until you wake up cold and damp?”

He nodded sharply. “A few of us got separated from my brigade after Vicksburg, had to walk almost 20 miles to find anyone alive. I’d never even seen a dead body before I enlisted and all of a sudden that was all I could see no matter which way I turned my head. Sometimes I dream I’m still there, following the dead back to safety I’ll never find. I always wake up before I can.”

She traced the scar with her fingers, picturing Barry downed and bleeding, possibly prepared to die. What must have gone through his head that day? Did he think of her as she thought of him and her family every time she found herself afraid for her life? She almost wanted to ask, but found her curiosity fading as he scooted closer, cupping her breasts with his large hands, much warmer now.

After a while they found themselves laid down against the pillows, Barry beneath her as she kissed him and pressed herself against his firmness. He seemed happy to submit to her, letting her move his hands where she wanted them to be. She guided his fingers toward the place where she most yearned for them, and found her breath speeding up as he touched her there. He had before, back when they were young and discovering each other, and their hands and mouths were their only available pleasure giving instruments, but him touching her now, sliding his fingers in and out of her with a skillful rhythm felt as new as it was familiar.

“Barry, please,” she cried out, her voice strained and ragged. She needed him now, all of him, and by the pleading look in his own eyes she could tell how badly he needed her too.

He shoved his pants down with some struggle, releasing himself, and Iris wrapped her hand around him as she rose up onto her knees to allow him access. When she sank down onto him, she cried out sharply, making Barry’s blissful expression turn to one of concern.

“Are you all right?” he said. And she nodded sharply. He was big, and she knew letting him inside her would come with a degree of pain, but it was the good kind, the kind that reminded her just how much she could feel. She began to move against him, slowly, carefully. She knew that Barry had never been with a woman, both by his own admission and the clear lack of finesse he employed beneath her, yet it felt undeniably good to be with him, to have him so close after being so far away for so long. She wanted to feel him even more, to feel his weight on top of her. She guided him wordlessly as they switched positions, Barry on top, situated between her trembling thighs. He remained gentle as he moved in and out, kissing her all the while, on her lips and on the still rising pulse of her neck. They made love like restless angels, risking Heaven for something even greater, and all Iris wanted was more, Every day for the rest of their lives.

The morning came slowly, the sunrise barely showing through the cloud cover enough to illuminate the sky in any useful way. It was as if the night was extended just for them, and they laid together in blissful silence, thoroughly spent and nearly too warm, a tangle of bedsheets and intertwined limbs. “Merry Christmas my love,” Barry whispered huskily against her shoulder.

“And is this what you wanted this year?” she teased, turning her head to face him. “To sleep in my bed?”

“That’s all I have ever wanted.”

She shook her head at him, a wistful expression on her face. “I still haven’t the foggiest idea what I plan to do with you.”

He propped himself up on an elbow to look down at her and combed her curls off of her forehead with his fingers. “I’ve been in the world a long time Iris, I’ve studied extensively about it. How it spins and why we don’t all go flying off.”

“And what else have you discovered?”

“Well, I don’t care for it much I have to say,” he admitted. “It’s dark, and cruel and it destroys beautiful things.”

“So what do we do about it then?”

He kissed her solidly on the mouth and spoke again. “I say we make a new one together.”

And just for one precious instant, that felt thoroughly possible.

 

**Stay Tuned folks!**

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a valiant effort to get this up by yesterday, seeing as it's another Christmas themed chapter (which is why I decided to postpone the new Chapter of Heart In A Cage until later this week) this time focusing more on Barry. As for the drama I mentioned in the last note, it's still coming, and you can see a bit of foreshadowing to it in this chapter, but for the most part it's pretty fluffy, all things considered. I'm not going to spoil what's going to happen in the next chapters, but if I were you I wouldn't drop this fic out of fear. Subjecting them (especially Iris) to loads of abuse is not my intention for the remainder of this story, it's meant to be an ultimately hopeful tale.

 

**Starling City, December, 1863**

 

Dear Momma and Poppa,

It has been 16 long years since I last saw your faces, and at times it feels as if I lost you just yesterday. The winter festivities are undoubtedly the hardest. I still so clearly recall the Christmases we spent together when I was a boy. I remember you, mother, reading to me from _A Christmas Carol_ as my eyelids grew heavy, the warmth of the fire and your voice soothing me to sleep. I remember how you, poppa, would carry me up to bed once the fatigue overtook me, and I would wake as if an instant later to a bright Christmas morning, full of gifts and laughter. 

  
Wherever your souls may wander, I’m sure you will be happy to know that I am well. This Christmas I have accompanied Captain Queen to his home in Starling City. It is a good place, and they are good company, but nothing can replace being with family this time of year. As I write this to you, they are downstairs enjoying charades and brandy with their closest. I made an attempt to participate, to smile and laugh with the others, but I couldn’t help feeling like an imposter, the green young soldier taken pity upon. What I wouldn’t give to be a part of something again.

Before I left Philadelphia, there were many questions as to why I chose to serve under General Grant in the South, as opposed to remaining in the North and possibly offering my skillset in a less violent capacity. There are so many answers to that question, each perhaps as valid as the last. In some ways I felt there was more work to be done there, or that after so many years I’d become more accustomed to my surroundings there than I ever wished to. But in the end, I believe what I needed was to feel close to something, something real and good amidst the darkness and savagery. Every time I see a woman from behind, with a ribbon wound through her braid, I think of her. She is my family now, even as we remain apart I believe that with everything I have, I feel it. And as much as I wish for Starling to be home, for Captain and Mrs. Queen to be family, they are only that to each other, not to me.

Yet I am grateful for them, for my time here, it has reminded me what the word truly means. I suppose I’ve lived too long without it.

Merry Christmas, I am sure that one day many years from now, I will once again be able to tell you that in person.

With Love,

Bartholomew.

 

**Central City, December, 1865**

 

They spent the morning lazily, in and out of sleep, in and out of each other’s passionate embrace. It was as if their bodies moved independently from their resting minds, and they found themselves periodically joined skin to skin as the hours crept by, the house in complete silence.

But as the clouds finally began to part, letting the sun creep through, he'd started to stir, half awake, half surrendered to his troubled dreams. The noise of screaming men and the smell of gunpowder entered his subconscious, competing with the present comfort he felt in Iris's arms. But he was only on the battlefield a moment before he found himself back on Thawne's land, holding her as tight as he could without harming her more. Her warm blood covered him, soaking through his clothes, her soft, pained whimpers brought tears to his own eyes. He hadn't held her the day she'd been tied to the tree and ripped apart. He hadn't held her. 

"Barry, Barry wake up," she stroked his hair, kissed the top of his head, led him into full waking with her soft, gentle voice.

"I'm sorry," he said, breathing heavily, his heart pounding. For a moment, he'd forgotten that she was healed, that she was safe in her own home with him by her side. "I'm sorry, just a dream. Was I shouting?"

"Just about, probably would have gotten there if I hadn't woke you. Did you want to talk to me about it?" She said, her face fraught with concern.

He didn't, he didn't want to bring her back there with him. Lying in her bed, his only wish was to please her, and he silently cursed himself for troubling her for even a moment. He'd told her about the dreams, still, he'd hoped that they'd leave him alone for long enough to enjoy his time entangled in her. He took a few more deep breaths and smiled up at Iris, letting her know that his nerves had calmed, although he wasn't quite sure that they had.

“It’s time we started dressing, get ourselves downstairs before they wake up," she whispered after a few moments.

“That can wait just a little longer can't it?” he said. He gave her a devilish look, and in the next moment he had her beneath him, convulsing in hushed laughter.

“Barry I’m serious,” she giggled.

“So am I,” at that he started to kiss down her naked body, inch by inch, agonizingly slow until he found that treasured place between her thighs, an apology for the worry he'd caused. Considering how intimate they’d been repeatedly throughout the morning, he wondered for a passing moment if he’d still need it, to pleasure her that way. He realized immediately that he always would. He loved making her feel good, the noises she made, the taste and fragrance of her, like muggy summer rain on the seaside. He loved her clutching at his hair as if to keep herself from floating away.

“Barry,” she said in a choked whisper as he continued to devour her, swirling his tongue back and forth, in and out. He kissed her there as deeply and sweetly as he would her mouth, and was rewarded for the effort with the sound of her hushed moans and escalating breaths, the tremor of her hips beneath his sturdy hands, and that final, telltale gasp.

“We have to stop,” She said once she caught her breath, likely afraid she'd lose complete control of her voice and alert the whole house to their scandalous activities.

Reluctantly, he gave her a few final soft kisses on her womanhood, and sat up over her. He pulled her up to hold her against him, let her rest her head on his shoulder as she caught her breath. She didn’t jerk away that time when he gently placed his hands against her scarred back. He kissed her shoulder softly, feeling the raised skin of a stray lash beneath his lips, he then kissed her temple, lingering there, feeling her sped-up pulse and tasting her sweat. He could have fallen asleep again with her in his arms, but she was right, much of the morning was gone, his stomach was empty and he needed to head back before the snow returned.

Just then, there was a heavy knocking on Iris’s door, and their blissful morning was immediately thrown into upheaval. Iris pressed her finger to her lips in a silencing gesture as she jumped out of bed. Barry obliged, his own mouth remaining shut as he climbed out of bed and scrambled as silently as possible into his clothes, strewn in various places across Iris’s room.

“ _Iris, you awake_?” Joe called from behind the door

“I’m up Pa,” she said, her voice unsteady, “Was just about to go downstairs to get breakfast started. What time is it anyhow?”

“Damn near nine,” he said.

Barry started at getting into his shoes, but lost his balance and planted his other foot a bit too hard on the floorboard, making a loud thump. She glared at him in annoyance and he looked at her sheepishly.

“ _What was that_?” Joe said.

“I stumbled a little on my way out of bed,” she explained quickly. She turned to Barry again, mouthing for him to hide in her washroom, he obeyed, tiptoeing slowly through the opposite door. He waited there as Iris returned to assuring her father that nothing was wrong. Barry hoped that she would be able to convince him. Although Joe once again spoke to his daughter with a certain level of ease in most cases, there was nothing of the sort between Barry and the older man. Joe made no effort to hide his dislike for Barry, and Barry made no real attempts to change his mind, choosing instead to respect his firmly established boundaries. He was happy enough to be in Iris’s good graces, and treated with quiet neutrality by her brother. Still, the last thing he wanted was to fall even further in her father’s opinion, and being caught in her room was the surest way to do just that.

“ _Wait, what did you just say_?” from her room, Iris’s voice reached Barry again, jerking him out of his thoughts.

 _“I said what I said,”_ Joe sounded quiet and slightly disturbed, and Barry wondered what the trouble was. _“Go outside without snowshoes you’ll slip through to the top of your head, ain’t no horse or carriage getting through that. Lucky we got things sorted ahead of time for Christmas dinner.”_

Barry’s spirits immediately sank. He was snowed in, with Iris, and Wally… and Joe. He couldn’t explain away his presence without cruelly insulting the man’s intelligence, and he certainly couldn’t admit that Iris had taken him as a lover. He was undoubtedly a dead man. Yet he couldn’t even bring himself to regret coming to her, bringing her heat, loving her beneath the sheets the way no one had ever done. As their speaking became too hushed for him to follow, he started to wonder if Iris regretted letting him stay. He needed her more than she needed him, that much was certain. He had no one else, while she had her family to lean on should anything ever break them apart. But he didn’t have the time to dwell on his thought as the next thing he saw were her wide and apologetic eyes staring into his after she opened the door.

“Where’s your father?” Barry said.

“Getting coffee started,” she said. “And he wants to see you… alone.”

He swallowed hard, wondering to himself if the snow might break his fall if he were to leap out of the window.

“I had to tell him,” she explained. “I didn’t get into specifics of course, but I told him about the heater, I told him about letting you stay till the cold let up.”

“Did he believe you?”

“It was the truth,” she said with a shrug. “Just not the entirety of it.”

Barry took a few deep, steadying breaths before going downstairs, where Joe was preparing coffee with an unnervingly unreadable expression.

“Sit,” Joe said. Barry obeyed, pulling out a chair and sitting down without once breaking his nervous eye contact. The older man approached the table, setting a cup of coffee at either end, then he sat, twined his fingers together and set them out in front of him.

“Mr West?” Barry said with a timid croak.

Joe sipped a bit of his coffee, stalling in a way that seemed to expose each of Barry’s nerve endings. Even the sound made by the cup being set back on the tabletop made him flinch.

“I don’t like you,” Joe said. “You’re white, you’re skinny, and you cry more than a man has any business crying. If it were up to me, my daughter would have married Scott Evans when he asked.”

Barry had had no idea that Scott had asked Iris to marry him. She’d never spoken of Scott as anything but a former colleague and friend. He tried not to let the jealously seep in. It was Barry that Iris had lain with that morning, not Scott. Scott was in New York, possibly never to return. If Iris had wanted him, perhaps she’d be there too.

“I know you don’t like me Mr. West,” Barry said. “I can’t imagine I’d like me much either if I were in your position.”

“The problem is, it doesn’t much matter whether I like you or not. Iris is set on you, and that girl’s always been stubborn as any man, can’t get her to go one way or the other.”

“I know it well as anyone.”

“And to be honest I’m getting real tired of fighting with that girl. I got too many worries, too much else that need tending to. Like the barn for one, if them cows and them horses don’t get their feed or catch too much of a chill we’ll be out of milk and transport longer than we can stay living. So right now you’re going to help me dig it out the snow and get them animals fed, I don’t care if it take all Christmas we getting it done.”

“Yes sir,” Barry said with a swift nod.

“Drink your coffee, you gonna need it.”

It didn’t take all Christmas to dig out the barn, but it just about felt that way. By the time Joe, Wally and Barry had finished the grueling work they were nearly frozen to their bones. But prone to crying or not, Barry was an adept and strong worker, finding that the more activity he lent to his shoulder, the less it bothered him. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Joe would be impressed, but he hoped he’d done an adequate enough job to earn a stiff drink.

When they reentered the house, it was warm and aromatic with Iris’s cooking; Venison sausages, fat chickens, black eyed peas, Mustard greens and Johnny cake. As soon as Joe closed the door behind them, Barry started to feel the heat reenter his body, and moreso when she gently smiled at him.

“How’d ya’ll fare out there?” She asked, wiping her hands on a dry cloth.

“Lousy,” Wally said before huffing into his cuffed hands. “But at least the work’s done.”

“Why don’t you boys help yourselves to some bourbon while I finish up here,” she said, as if reading Barry’s mind. With his cheeks red from the cold, they couldn’t see him blushing. He’d probably blush every time she looked at him that way from now on.

After getting warm and pleasantly tipsy, Barry sat with Iris on the sofa, while Wally and Joe enjoyed a game of cards on the table and waited patiently for dinner to finish cooking. He felt like holding her hand, or putting an arm around her shoulder, but chose not to push things around Joe, it was the first time he’d been met with cold indifference as opposed to simmering disdain, and he didn't want to risk it.

“I have to say Iris,” Barry whispered in her ear as Joe and Wally became consumed in their game. “As inconvenient as all this snow is, I’m glad I’m stuck here, with you.”

“I’m glad you’re stuck here with me too.”

At the next moment, there was a knock on the front door, and Iris had a confused expression on her face.

“Who would possibly come to my front door in this snow?” she got up just then and went for the front door, and Barry wondered if he should stay where he was or head for the upstairs, he decided on the latter, and stood up from the sofa, swooning a bit from the combination of drink and standing up a bit too fast.

“It’s all right Barry,” Iris said, staring throught the peephole. “No need to hide.”

She opened the door, and on the front porch a group of children stood, from younger than ten to teenaged. There was also a pretty lady as short as some of the kids, and a giant and strikingly familiar-looking man with a girl of about seven in his arms. They were all wearing snowshoes and bundled up in warm clothes, but still looked anxious to get inside.

“Miss west,” said the young girl in the man’s arms. “Why there a white man in your house?”

“Sara hush,” said the man who held the little girl. “But seriously Iris why is there a white man in your house?”

They started to push their way inside, and Iris closed the door behind them.

“Mr. Diggle, you remember Barry Allen.”

“Hmm,” The giant man, Diggle, said with narrowed eyes as he set the girl down. Barry hadn’t known him well back when he worked on Thawne’s land, but he supposed he could say that about all of them save for Iris. “Thawne’s boy, what he doing here?”

“We work together now, at the university is all,” Iris said. “We were going over some school things when he got himself snowed in.”

“How about that,” Diggle said, something mildly suspicious in his voice.

“So what are ya'll doing here anyway, not that it’s not good to see you.”

“What you think?” said a teenaged boy with a strong, V shaped nose and a voice deeper than his age. “We came for some of that world famous Miss West cooking.”

“Well Jefferson you’re a little early, dinner won’t be done for another hour or so,” said Iris.

“We can wait,” said the younger boy, Jefferson.

Barry caught a glimpse of Joe in his peripheral vision as the older man went up to the small woman. She was well dressed and standing hand in hand with a young teenaged girl, presumably her daughter, and Joe’s expression at the sight of her could only be termed charmingly smitten. Barry was previously unaware that Joe had any expressions aside from stern and disgusted. Now it was easy to see the softness Iris always swore he had within him.

“Cecile, happy you could make it,” Joe said. “May I take your coat?”

“Why I thought you’d never ask,” she said flirtatiously.

Almost too amused to contain himself, Barry turned to Iris. “Who on earth is that woman?” he asked.

“Oh,” said Iris. “Cecile’s opening a colored school, a licensed one real close to The Keystone, with classes all through the day. She’s been coming around lately to see if some of the children are ready for enrollment. She’s taking on all of the younger ones at the beginning of the school year, even little Sara.”

“That’s good right, that’s what you were trying for?” Barry said, but he couldn't help but notice that she looked a little sad.

“That’s what we wanted, yes, and it’ll surely do them some good to see college somewhere down the line. I’m going to miss it though.”

“Well it doesn’t look like you’ll have to worry too much about losing touch, they came through all that snow just to come spend time with you on Christmas.”

“Yeah, well, me and the food.”

“And Joe certainly looks happy, elated really.”

Iris snickered a bit behind her hand as she watched her father exchange pleasantries with the lovely educator.

By dinner time, a stack of snowshoes and coats were piled in the corner, and every chair from every room in the house was gathered around the big table. They sat and ate and talked and laughed among themselves while Barry remained quietly observant. He felt strangely comfortable just watching, being a part of the scenery, or perhaps it was Iris’s hand in his under the table, squeezing, letting him know she was right there, that put him at ease.

“So, moonlight,” Jefferson started, tilting his chin up firmly toward Barry.

“I’m sorry, were you addressing me?” Barry said, confused.

“Yeah you, they any negroes at your school?”

“Um,” Barry Stammered. “Scott Evans, he was a journalism student, but he mostly earned his credit through apprenticeship.”

“I attended Oberlin,” Said Cecile. “Not many other black students so I kept to myself usually.”

“How do I do that?” Said Jefferson, something hopeful in his eyes.

“I would be happy to get some information on your behalf,” said Cecile. “Attending secondary school next year is a big step.”

“Which programs do you think would be of interest to you?" asked Barry. “Central City Research University is best known for its sciences.”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” said Jefferson. “Like Frankenstein, right Miss West.”

“Well, I like to think you’ll do a lot less harm than him in a lab,” she said

“Well I know I’m going,” Said Wally. “If my sister can get a job there, I can sure enough be a student. I want to make machines. You got to learn a helluva lot to do that.”

“I wouldn’t be too impressed," said Iris. "I’m an assistant. I fetch things, make coffee, take endless notes, nothing of any real prestige.”

“Sounds prestigious to me,” Said Jefferson with a shrug, making Iris smile.

“Well I’d be proud to have any of you as students,” Barry said. “When you’re ready I insist you apply.”

“I’m ready,” said little Sara.

“Is that so?” said Iris, amusedly.

“Yeah, I know what that book’s about now,” she said. “The doctor made a man, but he couldn’t control him. Just like my daddy and me.”

“That’s exactly right,” Iris said, making the little girl smile.

“I think there needs to be a college for us," Added Wally. "Somewhere where we won’t get those looks my sister’s always talking about.”

“Well there’s the Raleigh institute,” Said Cecile. “In North Carolina, it’s new but there is great potential there.”

“Well there’s no way in hell I’m going back to the south,” Said Jefferson. “Them crackas can look at me any sort of way they want, I’m going to college, and I’m going to do better than every single damn one of them.”

“To education,” said Iris, lifting her glass.

“To education!” The rest chimed in.

 

After Dinner, Barry sat on the porch, allowing the cold air to wash over him. He still felt warm and fuzzy in the head from the bourbon, and the chill was nice against his skin, although he knew it would soon grow too cold for his comfort. Little Sara didn’t seem to have that concern, she’d been building a snowman for the past half hour and didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping.

“You know, you can help if you want,” she said, skipping up to him with as much grace as her snowshoes afforded her. Her father was currently inside, enjoying drinks and catching up with Joe.

“I’m not sure I’d be much help at all,” he said. She sat down next to him, and started to swing her little legs back and forth out in front of her.

“You know, my momma was white too,” she said, Barry raised his eyebrows at the girl. “That’s how come my eyes so light. Daddy said they were her eyes too. And she was one of the prettiest ladies he ever saw.”

“How did a thing like that happen?” Barry said, feeling strangely hopeful, because he couldn’t help but think that the girl, with her sandy brown curls and blue eyes looked much like what a child he were to make with Iris would. He tried not to let his mind fix too hard on the thought and continued listening to the girl.

 

“He worked for my grandpa,” she explained. “And he and my momma fell in love, but she died when she was having me. My grandpa said he didn’t want to see me so it’s just me and daddy now, but it’s all right. I love my daddy.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I was only a little older than you are now when my parents passed on.”

“You didn’t have a momma or a daddy?”

He shook his head no.

“But you got Miss Iris though, you love miss Iris?”

He knitted his brow in confusion, wondering what the child was playing at. “What gives you that impression?”

“All the boys love miss Iris, ‘cause she’s the prettiest and most smartest, the nicest too.”

Barry turned his head and looked into the window, he saw Iris wrapping a long scarf around her brother’s neck, something she’d obviously knitted as a gift. A moment later she locked eyes with him through the window, and they traded small smiles before she turned her attention back to Wally, and Barry focused again on Sara.

“Can you keep a secret?” Barry said.

“I can keep a secret better than anyone.”

“Miss Iris is my lady,” Barry said. “Always has been, since we were children.”

Sara looked happy to hear it, happy that someone else out there was like the family she never truly had.

“Would you like to hear a story?” Barry said.

“Yes please.”

“Follow me back inside.”

He met with Iris upon returning inside, and leaned in to whisper in her ear, feeling confident about doing so as Joe was currently too preoccupied with Cecile to pay him much mind. “You remember _A Christmas Carol_?”

“However could I forget?”

“Well I think between the two of us we can recall the important bits, what do you say?”

“I say the kids’ll love it.”

And just then as her face lit up with affection and Christmas spirit, the thought of children, children with Iris, invaded his mind. What he wouldn’t give to read _A Christmas Carol_ to his own son or daughter, a child with eyes like his and skin like hers. He wanted that so much it terrified him. But he let the thought pass again, and decided to focus only on the children in the room. It was Christmas, and Christmas was the time to count one’s own blessings. She was a blessing, just her, whether it remained just the two of them for the rest of their lives or not.

Still, what a blessing a child would be.

**Stay Tuned Folks!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost felt bad about giving Barry a cute moment with Sara, seeing as he whooshed her out of existence and all. But I like to think she'll find her way back in canon somehow. Also, sorry for killing Lyla. It wasn't easy.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to go there, I promise. You'll see what I mean.

**Iris West, Central City 1866**

As it was wont to do, time went on. The winter was possibly one of the worst Central city had seen in years, with almost as many days of snowfall as not, and the pond in the woods freezing over so solid children ventured out to slide around on top of it on their shoes. She’d go along sometimes to watch them, if only to keep herself close. The thought of them not coming around to see her every day hurt more than she wished, and with the progress made on Well’s book, her work there would be done sooner rather than later. It would be studied for years to come at colleges she couldn’t attend, by people who wouldn’t look her way, and she had no choice but to accept it.

She needed a new purpose, something useful to  do with her time besides work under white men just as patronizing as they were well meaning. She missed the Bellwether, she missed writing about things that mattered on earth, not only in the sky. And as much as she hated to admit it, she missed Scott Evans. She missed his friendship, as prickly as it often was. She missed working alongside him on important stories, traveling the country, meeting people she’d never meet otherwise. Only a few short years ago she’d sat for bourbon with General Grant, taking sips in between scribbling furious notes. She’d been out in the world only to be shoved back in her place at the end of the war.

She didn’t have much use for the idea that she was ungrateful for wanting more. She knew exactly how much better she had it than most who’d lived through what she had, yet she knew deep down that that could never be enough. She’d worked and studied every bit as hard as Barry, she deserved to speak at the front of a classroom just as much as him, she deserved her name on a book just as much as Wells, she deserved it all, and knowing that was the worst sort of torture.

With March came the first thing close to a stretch of warm days she’d seen in months, and by the time a few patches of ground were visible outside of the plowed road, she considered it a good a time as any to deliver new pages to Wells. She’d done so through post the past few weeks on account of the weather, but she was growing restless. 

Lightning seemed every bit as anxious to be out and aboutas she was and got her to her destination in record time. The campus was even lovelier in the winter with way the sun reflected off of the snow, making it luminous.

She knew Barry was around somewhere, she’d have to find him after taking care of her business with Wells. It was strange, how consistently she still ached for him. Over the winter they took every opportunity to be with each other in the closest possible sense, granted never quite as spontaneously as that first morning. He’d spent most of the winter with the Wests, taking on much of the extra work the colder days required, but it was still difficult to get swept up in passion with Wally and Joe roaming about the house. It was only when they were out for hunting and all of Iris’s own chores were done, that she had no qualms with relaxing her tired body beneath Barry’s, and she had, time and again, because there was no one around to tell her she couldn’t. Sometimes she felt it was the only freedom she truly had, to love and be loved.

He did love her, that was one thing she never questioned, even as she questioned everything else. 

As she made her way to Wells’s office, as always they looked, and whispered, and a few even yelled obscenities. It was as if they still weren’t used to a colored woman on campus, not the brightest lot for university students she thought. She did her best to ignore them, to keep looking forward. Always forward.

 

When she arrived at his office, Wells seemed to be hard at work on something that didn’t interest her much. He looked up from the scatter of papers as she walked in.

“Greetings Miss West, it’s been some time.”

“It certainly has.”

“I’ve been  impressed by what I’ve read over the winter. It appears that our work together will soon be drawing to a close.”

“It saddens me greatly.”

He smiled a melancholy smile, the only kind he was likely capable of, “Listen Miss West, I understand that things haven’t been easy, since the war, the fire. And I know that you have your concerns as to what your place here will be once we’ve completed our work. I just want you to know you are always welcome, for whatever purpose--

“Dr. Wells,” she said cutting him off. She wasn’t sure where it came from, the sudden burst of defiance, the need to speak honestly no matter the consequences. But it was there, and rising and threatening to erupt every silent moment that passed. “What is your exact opinion of Professor Allen?”

“Bartholomew Allen?” Wells said quizzically, to which she nodded. “He’s a fine addition to our faculty, just as I knew he would be, why do you ask?”

She didn’t wish to get Barry into trouble, it was the last thing she wanted, and perhaps if she would have taken a moment to think it over, she would have reconsidered the words that were threatening their way out of her mouth, the impossible life changing words.

“I love Professor Allen,” She said.

Wells didn’t seem to react one way or the other to her words, his expression remained unchanged. “He is a brilliant young man, and I know you knew him prior to his emploty here, it’s no surprise you’d admire him.”

“I don’t admire him Professor Wells,” she said, although she did. “I love him. I love him the way… I love him the way a woman loves a man.”

Those were the words, the ones that gave him pause, made him look up at her confusedly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Professor Wells,” she said, stepping closer to his desk. “You’ve been good to me over the months, you’ve paid me fairly which is more than I can say for most of the people my family and myself have worked for the past few years. You say I have a place here and I’m grateful, truly. But you see I can’t stay if those who claim to be my biggest champions are going to look at me only as some curiosity, some proof of their so-called goodness. I’m a person, with needs and emotions like everyone else, and they’re not independent of your world, I’m in it, I’m here. So Professor if I’m going to continue to be here I need to know that we can trust you, that we can trust _someone_.”

She realized then that a stray tear had escaped, and she dabbed it away with her gloved hand.

“We? So he is aware, of your affections?”

She nodded once, and the enormity of her confession began to dawn on her, the fact that she could have just damned them both. Still, there was a certain catharsis to telling the truth, a certain weight removed.

“Hmm,” Wells murmured. “Well Miss West you are certainly bright, high spirited, handsome if you don’t mind me saying. I must say I’m… pleased.”

“Pleased?”

“That you have both found worthy companions.”

“And that’s all?”

“What else would there be?” He said. “To be honest I can’t say I’m particularly surprised, there always seemed to be a certain tension between the two of you that I’ve found difficult to place, and the way he stares after you when you leave a room is far from subtle. This actually clears the matter up quite well. But, and forgive me if I’m overstepping my bounds but have you thought about...

“Marriage? Children?” She asked, and Wells nodded. “Of course, we just decided we were more important to each other than some abstract concept. And to be perfectly frank I’m not sure if I’d even want to make full-black babies if I had to raise them in a world like this.”

Wells seemed to have run out of things to say, she didn’t mind. He’d said the only things that mattered. Except for one last promise that she needed him to keep.

“And I hope I can trust you to keep this secret.”

“I know what the men in charge of this university speak about when they think they are among friends, I would never condemn you to their judgment.”

“Thank you Professor Wells. And to answer your question, I would be happy to stay on board in any capacity you may need, but I hope you understand that it can’t be forever, not the way things are.”

“I understand Miss West, and I do wish that circumstances could be different for you. Perhaps one day they will be.”

She gave him a weak smile, thinking that circumstances were probably about as good as they were likely to get in her lifetime. But considering how much worse things could be, how much worse they once were, maybe there was hope after all. Maybe there always would be.

  
  
  


After finishing up with Wells, she went to find Barry in his chemistry class as his last few students were drifting out. There he was, erasing the blackboard in broad strokes, a few traces of chalk dust in his hair. She smiled at the sight of him, and locked the door behind herself after she stepped in.

“Iris, I wasn’t expecting you here,” he said. She walked up to him quietly and brushed the chalk dust from his hair with her fingers.

“I did something you may not approve of Barry, I don’t know why I did. I guess I simply couldn’t help myself.”

“Should I be concerned?” he said, knitting his brow in a serious expression.

She shook her head and began to smooth the slightly rumpled lapels of his jacket. “No, nothing to be concerned about. But I suppose if things would have went differently that wouldn’t have been the case.”

“What happened?”

“I told Professor Wells. I told him about us.”

“You did? What was his reaction?”

“Barely one at all, he was pleased in fact. Doesn’t mean I’m in some hurry to tell anyone else.”

“Nor am I.”

“I hope you’re not angry, I know I should have discussed it with you first, it all happened before I could even stop it. I just needed someone to know Barry, someone here, we’re here so often it maddens me that we can’t be fully ourselves with anyone, especially the one we’re most acquainted with.”

Barry looked at her sweetly, and pressed his lips against her forehead. “I am not angry, no.”

“Well I’m glad. Because I wouldn’t want to waste the coming days with you being cross with me."

“And why is that?” he said with a wicked smirk.

“Wally and Pa are in Jump for a few days on a rail job. They’ll be gone ‘till the Wednesday after next.”

She started to back away toward the door teasingly, enjoying the yearning look in his eye. “So if I were you I wouldn’t leave me waiting.”

  
  
  


By the time she arrived back home her hands were starting to go numb in her gloves. Barry would still be another couple of hours behind, so there was time to get herself warm and start dinner for the two of them. She couldn’t have been happier to have the house to herself for a few days, and she looked forward to waking up warm in Barry’s arms the next few mornings. 

She put Lightning in the barn, and rushed to her front door, eager to be indoors, but the second she entered her kitchen, every bit of excitement she had for the next few days dissipated.

How did he get inside? How long had he been waiting? And just what was he reading?

He started to read aloud, and her blood grew colder than the air outside “Dear Iris, now I know you’re not seriously asking me for my approval are ya? Because you know just what I’m going to say. To hell with anybody who tells you you can’t do what you want, go where you want and yes, fuck who you want. You’ve been through too much to go through life like you’re still in chains. That white boy you fancy ain’t got no one’s name on him, so if he loves you true than what the hell is the problem? But I know you Iris West, I know by the time you get this letter you’ll have already made love to that boy on every last surface of your house, and you better tell me all about it too.”

“Man,” Anthony said, folding her letter in half. “That Tulip’s got a dirty mouth on her don’t she?”

“What are you doing in my house Mr. Woodward?” she said. trying not to let her voice shake. “And reading my mail on top of it? Have you gone mad?”

“Mad? No. Suspicious? Yes.” He stood up from her kitchen table and she almost involuntarily stepped back. “Every time I come around these days you take so long to answer the door, I’ve been wondering why that is, but this clears it up just fine. You’ve been laying with some other white man in your house haven’t you?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh don’t play dumb, you ain’t no good at it,” He stepped closer, so close she could smell the tobacco in his clothes. “I just have to ask, what does this mystery man have that I don’t huh? First I just reckoned you weren’t interested on account of my color but that ain’t it is it? Not if this letter’s anything to go by.”

“What you’ve done is a serious violation, it’s unlawful."

“And who’re you gonna tell huh? Who’s going to pay your quarrel with me any mind? certainly not my daddy, when do you ever even see him around here?”

She tried to breath, tried not to cry, and seriously thought about running. She didn’t like the look in his eye, she didn’t like how close he stood. She didn't like the way he made her feel, like her body wasn't her own.

“My father will be home any moment Mr. Woodward,” Iris lied. “Now you may not be afraid of me but I know you’re afraid of him, you know how I know?”

He gave her an oily smirk, but there was something slightly unsettled in his eyes at the accusation.

“I know because he ain’t afraid of you,” she continued. “Never has been and you’ve never known quite what to make of that. I see the way you turn tail every time he comes aro-

She flinched as he slammed his fist against the wall behind her.

“You think you’re real slick don’t ya, you think I don’t know he ain’t here. I saw him and the boy leave bright and early, with baggage, they won’t be back for a good long while will they?”

She couldn't let him see the fear on her face, the way her body shook, it pleased him too much, egged him on even further. “Mr. Woodward, I demand that you leave my home at once.” The words were forceful, but her voice quaked, and her eyes threatened to overflow.

He took another step closer until he was right up against her and took her chin in his big, meaty paw, forcing her gaze on his.

“Oh I’ll go,” he said. “I got friends expecting me at the tavern and I want to take my time with you, but I will be back, you better believe I’ll be back. And when I do, I expect to be treated with a little more respect you hear? You really don’t want to be feisty with me right now, I mean that.”

He let go of her chin and she collapsed to her knees, her strength suddenly leaving her. The cold hit her hard as he opened the door to let himself out, but she could barely feel it. It was as if she was numb from head to toe. The day had started off so well, she should have known not to trust it. She shot up onto her feet and locked the door frantically, knowing that it made no difference. He had his father’s master key, it must have been how he got in, it must have been how he planned to get in later. It could have been an empty threat, meant to scare her, but it didn’t feel like one. It felt like something to take very seriously.

 

 

When Barry knocked on the door a couple of hours later, she nearly sprinted to let him in, taking only a moment to check through the small peep door. He had to take a step back with the force of Iris throwing her arms around him, sobbing hard into his chest

“What is it, what’s happened Iris?” He said worriedly, rubbing her back up and down.

“Mr. Woodward,” she said, the sound muffled by the fabric of his coat. He asked her to repeat herself and she looked up at him.

“Mr. Woodward, he was here, in my house. He went through my mail and he-- he knows Barry, he knows about you and me and I think…

“Please, please you must tell me,” he said, his horrified stare nearly burning into her.

“I think he means to do me harm Barry,” she admitted. “He found out about you from the letter Tulip sent me, it might as well have been an invitation.”

“Did he hurt you? Did he hurt you in any way?”

She shook her head violently. “No, but he said he’s coming back and I believe him Barry, I believe every word.”

“Where is he now?"

“At the Tavern, he headed there about two hours ago but Bar--

“Go to someone’s house, Diggle, anyone, stay there ‘till I come for you,” There was something wild in his eyes then, something angry and primal. She’d never seen him like that before.

“Barry, what’s on your mind right now? What do you plan to do?”

He didn’t answer, simply pulled her close and pressed his lips firmly against hers. He broke the kiss a moment later, and fixed his gaze back on her.

“Nobody is going to lay their hands on you do you understand me?”

She wanted to protest, wanted to remind him that he couldn’t just tell Anthony to leave her be, that there was no stopping a man like that from going after someone like her, someone the law wouldn’t protect and might even punish. But Barry looked so certain, so determined, that she couldn’t help but trust him. 

“Barry please don’t do anything that’ll keep you from coming home to me, please.”

“I’ll always come home to you Iris.”

He kissed her again, and the certainty behind it almost made her calm.

“Always.”

**Stay Tuned Folks.**

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So since I left this story on a cliffhanger, and Heart in a Cage left off at a relatively calm place, I decided to update this first. Just so you know, there's some uncomfortable stuff happening in it, mostly hate speech, although I avoid slurs. Also I hope you don't find Barry's actions uncharacteristically dark considering what they're dealing with here, there were so many ways I thought about concluding the Tony arc, and this one seemed the least problematic and most realistic to me.

When he’d reached the tavern it sounded full and lively. He’d only been once before, to accompany Wells after a particularly long day, but found the idle chatter of the drunks that assembled there far too distasteful to tolerate more than once. They were exactly the type of people that the likes of Anthony Woodward would wish to surround himself with.

He recognized the horse, tied up with six others outside. There was no one around to see, with the weather still too cold for comfort, everyone was inside. He took the opportunity to pick the lock securing Anthony’s horse, a task that took so long Barry found his hands nearly frozen before it unlatched. At that he sent the animal running with a firm slap on the rear before starting inside.

He shoved his way through the crowd of smelly, vulgar men to find Anthony situated at the bar, already bleary-eyed and speaking more loudly than needed.

“Here’s to the future, God help us all,” Anthony said, lifting his mug to no one in particular before downing the last foamy remnants at the bottom.

Barry took a seat next to the man and ordered a beer, although he didn’t plan on drinking it. He needed a clear head, Anthony was just as tall and far larger than Barry, but Barry was undoubtedly quicker, and without the impediment of alcohol, he could best him in a fight. Violence was the only language men like him understood, it was the very purpose of war. Barry had once thought the fighting was over. Every time he woke from an anguished dream in a cold sweat, Iris’s arms as his only comfort, he had to remind himself that it was 1866 and the war had been won. Now, looking at the man sitting next to him, the one who dared threaten his beautiful Iris, he knew that it was far from over.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Anthony said, squinting at Barry.

“Doubtful,” Barry said, he tried to relax his jaw, he sounded tense and angry, not like someone who didn’t know him. “I don’t come here much.”

“Did you fight?”

“I did.”

“I’d guess Confederate on account of that accent.”

“What about you?” Barry said, dodging the question entirely. “Where’re you from?”

“Florida, born and raised in Tallahassee.”

“I’m from Augusta myself, well, right about there anyway,” Barry said, he hated having to make conversation, having to exercise patience and calm when all he wanted was to wring the man’s thick neck until he breathed his final breath. “What are you doing up here anyway?”

“I ask myself that question damn near every day,” Anthony chirped a quick whistle at the barkeep in request of yet another beer, Barry wondered how many he’d had. “This place ain’t good for a damn thing, we came ‘cause we thought things might be a little easier on us up in the midwest can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em right? Well that was one helluva mistake. This place ain’t good for nothing.”

“Why do you say?” Although Barry had quite a good idea.

“I’ve never met a more uppity bunch in my life, especially the blacks, they got their freedom now they think they running things. And my daddy, he ain’t no use at all. He should be keeping order out in The Keystone but he sits on his ass all day while I take matters into my own hands. You know the sorry son of a bitch lets ‘em hunt in the woods? What if they tried to turn those guns on you or me, huh? Then what?”

“I can’t imagine why they’d take that sort of risk.”

“You must not know ‘em like I do, nothing but hate behind the eyes.”

And suddenly Barry wanted that beer almost more than he could stand, he settled on cooling his now overheated hands on the glass. “You don’t say?”

“Oh I know. If we let ‘em get away with too much we’re going to lose everything, already just about have. They hate us, and they’ll do whatever they can to ruin us, don’t make no mistake. You heard of the Bell Tower?”

“The Bellwether you mean?”

“Whatever the hell it was. I swear every damn word in that good for nothing rag was about how terrible the white man is, like they’d even make it two days without us. But we took right care of them, me and two buddies, you better believe we did.”

Barry knit his brow in confusion. Not only was Anthony confessing to burning the Bellwether, he acted as if he didn’t expect Barry to react at all, like it was nothing more than a lighthearted prank. And considering the complete lack of investigation into the matter, Barry couldn’t help but think that the law of Central City saw it the same way.

“The fire? That was you?”

“Somebody had to do something, ain’t nobody else seemed to care about them slandering our name the way they was, they just let ‘em get away with it for years.”

“I read about that fire,” Barry said, amazed at the fact that he hadn’t struck him down in the rage that coursed through his veins. “There were five people inside.”

“They got out well enough didn’t they? I ain’t murdered nobody, although not through lack of tryin’ I must say. Personally I think I would have been well within my rights.”

He remained quiet and Anthony squinted his eyes again at Barry, and just then a smirk turned the corner of one lip. “Wait a minute, I do know you, yeah, you’re that fella from Jump ain’t ya? Yeah, I’d know ya like the back of my hand, just dark in here is all.”

“Impressive memory.”

“Damn right,” Anthony took another swallow of beer, and the foam clung to his lips like a rabid animal, fitting, Barry thought. “So I’m guessing you got that fancy job after all. And you know I was just thinking about you actually, wondering if you ever did take my advice with that girl, tell me you did, I know for a fact you wouldn’t have gotten yourself swatted away. Turns out underneath them nice clothes and that fancy talk she’s just a no good whore like the rest of ‘em.”

Patience, patience and calm.

By the time the Tavern started to close up for the night, Anthony didn’t seem to notice that Barry hadn’t touched his beer. He’d downed two more himself in that time but walked with surprising coordination on his way out the door.

“So I suppose you’re about ready to head home?” Barry said, hoping that maybe his drunkenness bought Iris some time, time for Barry to think of a better plan.

“No, I’m going to go see about something first.”

“This time of night?”

“For what I got planned there ain’t no better time,” Anthony’s self-satisfied grin was enough to tell Barry that there was no time, he had to do it now. Anthony wouldn’t just hurt Iris, he’d do whatever it took to make sure no one found out, especially Joe, whom according to Iris was one Anthony feared more than he’d ever admit. Anthony would kill Iris and feel nothing, he’d stop her heart without ever caring how good and strong it was. He didn’t care how easily he could have killed the five people working at the Bellwether that night, why would he hold back with Iris? There was no other option, if Barry was going to save the one he loved, there was only one way to stop Anthony. The War wasn’t over, not by miles.

Just then Anthony looked toward where he’d chained his horse, and his face immediately fell at the realization that it was gone.

“Sonofabitch!” he exclaimed, kicking violently at the mushy snow. “Who took my horse?” He yelled toward the tavern, receiving no response. “Who took my damn horse?”

“Do you really suspect he would remain in the same place he took it from?” Barry said, making Anthony give him a blank, confused stare.

“Come on, I’ll help you look,” Barry said, unlocking his own horse.

They walked nearly a mile before they reached the woods separating Central City from the Keystone, Ophelia marching dutifully behind them, she was a good horse, she never would have abandoned him. Barry could only call it lucky that Anthony’s beast wasn’t quite as loyal.

“He probably took him through here,” Barry said. “You know the thief was probably from the Keystone.”

“When I find him I going to beat him to a pulp, I won’t let up even a second.”

Barry smiled a tight smile and they headed in. It was nearly another mile before they reached the pond in the one open section of the woods anyone really knew about, the sky could be seen clearly and there was a thin layer of snow covering it over. Of course if Anthony were sober he’d have a better recollection of where they were, but the last two beers were apparently enough to compromise even Anthony’s excellent memory, because he made nothing of Barry walking them out a few feet onto the ice.

“Why’re we stopping?” Anthony said.

“Just wanted to have a talk, you know between men.”

“You crazy? It’s colder’n hell out here.”

“This will only take a moment,” Barry said.

“What the hell is so damned important?”

Barry took a deep breath to settle his nerves and finally said the words he’d been waiting to say since he left her.

“I’ve come to decision about something, and you’re not going to much like it, but here it is. I’m going to kill you Mr. Woodward.”

Anthony only chuckled, which Barry suspected, possibly even hoped for.

“What was that?”

“I believe you heard me clearly. You threatened my Iris, you burned down her paper with five of her friends inside and didn’t much care whether they got out alive. You’ve left me with no other options. If I let you leave here, you’re going to attack her, and one of two things will happen, you’ll kill her, or far more likely, she’ll kill you. And you see only one thing happens to a black woman who kills a white man, no matter how good she is and how worthless he is, only one thing happens. And I will _never_ let that happen to her, not for as long as I’m breathing. So once again, I’m going to kill you Mr. Woodward because as much as I hate to admit it, I think my chances of getting off clear are just a little bit better.”

“You?” Anthony said. “It was you the whole time sneaking around under my nose?”

“If what we’re doing is unlawful what does that say of you and your vile intentions?” He tried to keep his voice steady, strong, but his anger mounted with each passing moment, making it shake. “In any case you seem amazingly calm at the fact of your impending death Mr. Woodward.”

“You think you can take me, huh,” Anthony chuckled. “You don’t even have no gun.”

With that Anthony found his own at his hip, pointed it directly at Barry, and fired.

“What the hell?” Anthony said, pulling the trigger over and over.

“About that,” Barry said, reaching into his pocket and finding the four shells he’d removed from Anthony’s gun in the short time the man had gone outside to relieve himself earlier in the night. He’d once again had to make sure he wasn’t seen, and considering how absorbed the men were in their camaraderie and drunken card games, it was much easier than he’d expected.

“You thieving bastard,” Anthony said, and quickly lunged forward with one meaty fist. Barry was able to dodge the punch, but not as easily as he’d hoped. The man was faster than he looked, something Barry would remind himself of constantly if he hoped to win. He didn’t throw any punches himself as Anthony chased him over the ice, swinging fists at Barry with no signs of fatigue. It was important that he didn’t hit him, and that he didn’t allow himself to get hit. Any marks on either man’s body would be considered evidence. Barry’s frantic gaze found the patch of thin ice near the center of the pond. He almost had Anthony exactly where he wanted him, out of Iris’s life forever. Or so he thought. Finally Anthony landed a punch, a powerful blow, his ring cutting a lash in Barry’s face. He fell backward onto the ice, and Anthony smiled triumphantly.

“You ain’t much of a fighter, maybe if more of you had been worth a damn we would’ve won.”

Barry looked down at where Anthony was standing, and he tried not to let his expression give anything away. It would be over in a manner of seconds, especially if Anthony tried to come after him again. Quite unfortunately for Anthony, he did, and with two far too heavy steps, Anthony found one foot  crashing through the ice.

"There was something I didn't tell you," Barry said, loud and clear but breathless at once. "I fought for the winning side."

And with that, he fell through the ice right before Barry’s eyes.

Barry scooted back until he reached a stable surface, as he watched Anthony struggle and grasp in and out of the frigid water. After a few minutes he’d pass out from the cold and drown. It would be deemed an accident. Iris would be safe from him and the law.

“Lord forgive me,” Barry whispered to the sky, his hands clasped beneath his chin. As he spoke he could still hear Anthony thrashing. “But I cannot allow any harm to come to Iris West. I was without another option, surely you can find it in your infinite wisdom to understand my choice. If not I swear to you that I will spend the rest of my life answering for my sins. With deepest sincerity, Bartholomew Allen.

It was time to go home, time to sleep, but first he needed some insurance. A white man going missing near the keystone was nearly as good as a dead body in Joe’s backyard. Barry had to take responsibility, or else it was all for nothing. He got onto Ophelia and ran hard toward the Central City Jail. By the time he got there, his face was flushed and his eyes were teary from the cold, but it could have just as easily been emotion and fear on his face, all the better for selling his story.

“Quickly, come quickly!” Barry cried, rapping loudly at the front door. A tired eyed enforcement officer, clearly the only one on duty, answered a second later.

“What in God’s name--

“No time, you must come at once, Anthony Woodward has fallen through the thin ice in the pond, I was helping him search for his horse in the woods, we split up to cover more ground and all of a sudden I heard a splash and ran after it. I tried to help him but it was no use.”

“All right son, calm down, we’ll go see after your friend at once.”

“Quickly, please,” Barry reiterated. The officer clapped him on the shoulder in an offer of comfort before retreating back inside, presumably for horses and back up, and Barry knew that he believed him entirely.

It took longer than Barry would have liked for them to find the body, after which they returned to tell Barry. They asked only a few questions, specifically about their relationship, and of course how Barry suffered the gash on his cheek. He told the officer he’d only met Anthony that night, but had made fast friends, a lie he nearly choked on. For the injury he blamed being lashed by a tree branch on his race toward the jail, which sounded perfectly legitimate to the officer. The snowfall had likely erased any incriminating patterns on the ice and there had been no one around for miles to hear the struggle. In the end, he was sent on his way with more sympathy than suspicion.

 

 

He knocked on Diggle’s door a little after five AM. When Diggle let him in, he saw that Iris was wide awake, Sara was fast asleep on the sofa next to her, and a copy of the Arabian Nights sat open on Iris’s shaking lap, she sprinted up from the couch, making the book fall with a thud, and she threw her arms around him so forcefully it nearly knocked the wind out of him.

“I’ll leave ya’ll alone,” Diggle said, he scooped Sara into his arms then and disappeared to the back of the house.

“Where were you?” She cried bitterly into his coat. “Huh? It’s been hours.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” he ran his hand over her hair and kissed her firmly on the temple. “But you’re safe now, I promise you he won’t be around here any more.”

She looked at him with wide, concerned eyes, and she gently touched his reddening cheek with her thumb.

“Barry, what did you do?”

“What I had to.”

He didn’t know how she might react, to the fact that he’d murdered a man for her, that he could have gotten himself killed doing it. He didn’t know, and he hated not knowing, hated how quiet she was.

“You’re gonna need some ice on that,” she finally said. “Come on, let’s go on home.”

 

**Stay Tuned Folks!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Iris West, Central City, 1866**

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

 

“Did you mean to?”

 

 

“Yes.”

She kept the kerchief of snow pressed firmly against his swollen cheek. And his hand came up to touch hers.

“I had to,” he said. “There wasn’t a choice.”

“Barry,” she started, not angrily. “The world is full of men like him, you can’t just kill them all.”

“I’ve killed before Iris.”

“That was war.”

“ _This_ is war!” He stood up then, leaving Iris holding the ice pack against nothing. She should have seen it coming, and maybe she did. That first time he crossed paths with Anthony, there was something in his eyes, something dark and wild. She saw it every time he woke up next to her sweating and screaming, every time he kissed her and held her like he’d never see her again. And she thought about what he told her before, about making a new world together, maybe the realization that they couldn’t was just too much. "He burned The Bellwether Iris, he admitted it like it was nothing"

Something inside of her hollowed at the words. She'd once or twice suspected it, but never could make her suspicions known. They wouldn't have cared, nor would they have helped. Killing Anthony was perhaps a depraved sort of justice. She wondered to herself for a moment if she would have made the same choice if she'd known for sure he'd been responsible, then she shook away the thought, it was beside the point, Anthony was dead either way. She stood up to meet Barry by the cooking table, set the ice pack down and placed a hand on his back.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not angry. I’m, well I’m scared if we’re being true.”

He turned to face her, something incredulous in his expression. “You're scared of me?”

“No,” she said as if such a thought were completely ludicrous. She looped her arms around his neck and stared him deep in the eyes, making her feelings clear. “I could never be scared of you. I’m scared _for_ you darlin’. If you’re unwell, you can tell me. I’ll love you just the same, it won’t change a thing.”

“I’m not different because of the war,” he said, reaching to where her hands perched at his neck and taking them in his. She wasn’t sure if she believed him, but she didn’t argue. “I just, I couldn’t let that man hurt you. The only thing that matters to me now is making you safe, and if that meant doing what I did then so be it. I should have killed my good for nothing uncle when I had a chance, but I didn’t. I let you get hurt and I promised myself I never would again, ever. So yeah, I killed that sonofabitch and I’d do it aga--

She threw her arms around him then, quieting him, shushing him, her fingers stroking the hairs at the back of his neck. His whole body seemed to tremor and she just wanted him calm, to take him to bed and sleep until the afternoon.

“We don’t have to talk about it anymore all right? Let’s just go to bed.”

“All right,” he said a moment later, in nearly a whisper. He was holding onto her so tight she thought she might break in his arms.

When they got to the bedroom she changed into her night clothes, lit the heater, then proceeded to get Barry out of his clothes, one garment at a time, while he stood there, quiet and finally still. When he was fully naked she took him by the hand to the bed, and let him rest his overheated head on her chest. At some point he loosened the top of her night dress and he took the tip of her breast into his mouth, making her breath hitch. She hoped against hope that his dreams wouldn’t trouble him that night, that he’d only dream of nice things. And she hoped that wherever Anthony Woodward ended up, he was judged accordingly.

 

She woke up a couple of hours later with the rusty, crudded feeling of too little sleep, but that was nothing compared to the sweating, and the twisting lurch in her stomach. Barry was still sleeping soundly, wrapped around her like a blanket, and it took some doing to wriggle free from his arms without waking him. The nausea seemed to escalate the more she moved, but she had to release whatever was inside her, making her ill.

When she was free from his sleeping embrace she darted into her washroom, barely making it in time to release the burning green bile from her stomach into the clean chamber pot. There wasn’t much else to vomit up since she hadn’t eaten since the afternoon before, and she wondered what it could have been that put her in so much distress. When she was spent she settled back against the wall, breathing heavy, her heart pounding.

“Iris,” at the sound of his voice she looked up at the door to see him standing there in only his britches, concern all over his bruised face. “What’s happened?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” she said, wiping the sweat from her forehead. He kneeled down beside her and she forced a weak smile his way. She felt better, less ill, but something began to trouble her. Had she felt sick at all before the morning? Maybe a bit, when Anthony was over, but that was the feeling she typically got at the sight of him, and as little as she wanted to speak ill of the dead, she had no kind words to replace the unkind ones with.

Barry stroked her hair back from her forehead the way that he did, and her smile grew. “It’s the damndest thing, I feel fine now.”

“Are you sure?”

She began to stand and he helped her to her feet. “Just still sleepy is all, I could use a bit more rest before we start our day off.”

He looked like he wanted to push further, to make sure that nothing more was amiss with her, but he swallowed his words after a moment and joined her again in bed.

 

It wasn’t until the next time, and the time after, that Iris began to grow concerned. Every morning since the first greeted her with sickness that came and went throughout the day. And there were other signs of course, signs her mother once told her to watch for. She hadn’t bled in a month and a half, and her breasts became so tender she found herself stiffening slightly at Barry’s touch.

She didn’t want to admit it to herself, the thing she already knew, she didn’t want to admit that the course of her life would be remarkably different if it were true. She didn’t want to think on it for longer than a passing moment at a time, or to feel all of the emotions she knew would consume her. She focused hard on work in the week that passed, she cooked and cleaned and wrote as if her life depended on it, stopping only to relieve her occasional nausea in hidden places.

She’d done everything she could to prevent what she feared was happening in her body, everything but denying herself the affection she so needed. The thought that it had happened anyway, that the universe had interfered in her affairs in such a permanent way, was overwhelming, because she knew how very wrong the universe was. Whoever was inside her was not meant to be. She couldn’t bring them into a world that would do everything in its power to break them down to nothing. She couldn’t hold them in her arms and sweetly sing them lies, that they had a place in the world, that they were free to be whoever they wished, she simply couldn’t.

As those thoughts continued to plague her one morning as she sat to write, she found herself staring down at a blank page, she couldn’t put words down on paper, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t do a thing but think about her baby, their baby, and how utterly doomed they were. She dropped the pen and launched herself up from the table, scrambling for her scarf and hat on the rack. Barry was out back, chopping wood for the kitchen stove, Pa and Wally weren’t due back for another two days. She wouldn’t tell them, not yet, not if she didn’t have to. She couldn’t tell Barry especially, not after everything. He’d killed a man to keep her safe, she couldn’t imagine the dark doorways he’d venture into to protect his child as well.

She found him outside as she went for her horse, he’d been troubled by her silence in the matter, knowing all the while that something was wrong, but not being able to do much about it with her swearing everything was just fine.

“Are you off somewhere?” He asked with the same worried inflection that graced his tone the last few days. She knew he didn’t suspect the truth, more likely he worried that dispatching Anthony Woodward had disconcerted Iris more than she wanted to admit, but truthfully she hadn’t thought much about him at all, after Barry had explained to her how he'd carried it out and how unlikely anyone was to suspect him, she thought of Anthony even less, her mind too set on the new trouble she’d gotten herself into.

“Just into town, I need to pick up a few things,” she said, trying her best to keep her expression unreadable.

“I'll accompany you,” he said, leaving the ax to rest in the stump and giving his shoulder a firm, relieving rub.

“No, that’s quite all right,” She said, trying her best to appear normal. “I’ll be home well before supper.”

She stood on her toes to kiss him, and turned away before he could protest further.

 

When she got to the medicine shop, Cait Raymond was sitting at the counter, a bored expression on her face as she flipped through some manner of catalog. An intense, uncontrollable fury overcame Iris at the sight of her, and she was once again grateful for the fact that the shop was empty.

“You sold me a worthless piece of junk!” Iris said, marching up to the counter.

“I’m sure I don’t understand what you mean,” Cait said, so coolly as to be maddening.

“I’m with child,” she said, and she realized it was the first time she said it out loud, although the words barely escaped past the hard lump in her throat. “Your device does nothing.”

“Miss West, I’m sorry to hear you were unhappy with your purchase, but no method of contraception is entirely without fault, especially…”

“What?” she snapped. “Especially what?”

“Especially with… frequent use.”

“Are you accusing me of being some common harlot?”

“I’m accusing you of nothing, only making sure you realize what might have caused this.”

“Well I’ve been with one man only,” Iris said truthfully, although considering the numerous trysts she’d shared with Barry since Christmas, she couldn’t help but think Miss Raymond’s reasoning was somewhat accurate.

Cait stood up from her seat, and pulled open the waist high wooden door separating the sales floor from the back inventory.

“I made tea, won’t you join me?” Said Cait.

It was most likely confusion and curiosity alone that compelled Iris to follow.

The back room was small and dimly lit, with two chairs and a small round table where a pot of tea and a cup sat, it was a porcelain set painted with tiny pink rosettes, easily the finest thing in the store. Cait retrieved a matching cup from the shelf and placed it on the table.

“Sit, please,” Cait said, and Iris lowered herself onto the chair closest to the door. Cait sat across from her and filled both cups with a fragrant, lavender hued brew. Iris didn’t want to admit that it looked and smelled divine, angry as she remained.

“I can help,” Cait said, then picked up the delicate tea cup and raised it to her lips. “I’ve done it before, for whores mostly, but there are always exceptions.”

Iris wasn’t sure what the other woman was implying, she simply remained silent as she took a sip of tea. It tasted like springtime.

“The procedure can be painful, but then again, so is child birth.”

“I don’t understand,” Iris said.

“You’re pregnant, and you don’t wish to be. I can take care of it, I’m quite skilled actually.”

She was talking about taking it out of her, just like that. No more baby, no more fear, no more living with the guilt of bringing a new life into an unspeakably cruel world, a world that could force them back into chains at any moment. Miss Raymond could fix it, for a price Iris assumed, but she could fix it all the same. So why didn’t she feel relief at the news? Why did the thought fill her with nothing but despair? Her hand shook, jostling the tea and sending a bit of it to the carpet, and she set the cup back down, suddenly no longer thirsty.

“I’m sorry I just… I mean, you would do that?”

“Well to be fair I feel somewhat responsible. I should have been more clear with the instructions I suppose.”

“And, when? When could you do it? I mean do I have to decide right now?”

“Not now, no, although I wouldn’t wait much longer. The longer you wait the less feasible the operation becomes. Judging by your figure I can’t imagine you’re too far along, but still, the time to decide is limited.”

She tried to breathe, tried to stay rational. What Cait was suggesting was clearly the best option. She couldn’t have a baby, not Barry’s baby, the thought was ridiculous and dangerous, and there was no reason for her to consider it any longer. Waiting would only make it more painful, more sad. She should have scheduled the procedure right then and there. Instead she stood up hastily, mumbled something about needing to think on it further, and rushed out of the shop without another thought.

 

She hadn’t given herself time to cry since she first suspected what was happening. To cry about it would make it real, irreversible, yet on the way back home it was all she could do, hot tears blurring her vision to the point that she was grateful for knowing the way by memory. Why couldn’t she have just said yes to what Cait was offering? She knew of the procedure, knew that it was really no more dangerous than just having the baby. But perhaps it wasn’t the risk that gave her pause. If it wasn't the risk than what could it have been? They couldn't have been much of anything yet, the baby. They didn't yet have her curly hair or Barry's pretty green eyes, they couldn't hug her, or kiss her or call her momma, they couldn't even kick her from the inside yet to let her know they were there. So why couldn't she bear the thought of never meeting them? Of never reading them her favorite stories or watching them grow? Why couldn't she bear the thought of Barry never carrying them around on his shoulders? Or pointing out the stars and telling them how far away they were? Why did she suddenly want so badly what she had for so long only hoped to prevent?

She didn’t address Barry when she ran into the house and up the stairs to her room, didn’t catch what he’d said when he called out to her. She sank onto her bed and continued to cry, as if all of the emotion she’d held in the entire week was coming out at once and she couldn’t contain it. She was pregnant, she was going to be a mother and Barry was going to be a father, that was the way of it, and she felt sick and anguished and torturously hopeful at once.

“Iris,” Barry said, running in to be at her side. And the sight of him only made the sobs come harder and faster. He tried to thumb them away, kiss them away, but it was no use, the pillow was wet with tears and her body was in pain from heaving, it just wouldn’t stop. He got up onto the bed next and pulled her close to him, holding her convulsing body solidly because it was all that he could do at the moment.

“Sweetheart please tell me what’s the matter,” Barry said desperately. “Is this because of Woodward? Is this because of what I’ve done?”

“No,” she finally managed to choke out. “To hell with him, I hope he burns!”

“Then what is it?”

She tried to settle herself, tried to breathe. Barry holding her made the hurt ever so slightly less, but she remained confused, and terrified and unable to handle any of it.

“I’m pregnant,” she finally said, clinging hard to his shirt, she didn’t want to look at his face, didn’t want to see the fear in his eyes, but his speechlessness was quite enough to know that it was there. “I didn’t want to be, but I am, I know it. And I don’t know what to do Barry, I don’t know what we’re going to do. Because I went to this woman who says she can fix it, take it out, but I can’t, I can’t do it. I love it so much already.”

That was it, that was the truth. She couldn’t help but love anything that they had made together, even if she refused to let herself believe it at first.

“And you’re sure?” he said, his voice shaky. Finally she looked up at him, her Barry, and nodded against his chest.

“What are we going to do Barry?” she said, her voice small and weak.

He lowered his lips to hers, kissing her so tenderly it threatened to ruin her all over again.

“I’m going to make you supper,” he said. “And then we’re going to get this all sorted, I promise.”

She didn’t understand how he was so calm, but she loved him for it, because she didn’t have it in her to be calm at all. She didn't know if she ever would again.

**Stay Tuned Folks!**


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really sorry about how much I like cliffhangers (it's a problem, angst and cliffhangers are like my fanfic crack), I know it isn’t fair to you, but if it helps the next update definitely shouldn’t take as long as this one did.

**Barry Allen, Somewhere in Mississippi, 1863**

 

He’d walked for what felt like days, past the scattered dead he could only pretend not to see. War had made a corpse of everything it seemed, not just the men, everything felt quieter, even the screeching of crows sounded as if they'd reached him from another dimension. Perhaps he was a corpse too. It was July, yet he felt chilled to his bones, there were others trudging alongside him, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak to them. The young man on his left, a black youth that he passingly recognized, weeped bitterly, praying for forgiveness under his breath.

For many in Barry’s brigade, the war had been their first encounter with death, and while Barry had seen death up close, he’d never caused it before. He remembered holding the gun steady over his uncle’s sleeping form, he remembered how difficult it had been to pull the trigger, even as he hated the man at the end of the barrel more than he could possibly say. In the thick of battle, when the only way to keep himself alive was to fire, run and fire, run and fire, until everything was quiet, there was no time to feel any guilt, or pause. Now it was all he felt, deep in the pit of his stomach. They weren’t all slave holders, weren’t all fighting to keep his beloved in chains, some merely hoped to survive. He knew that, but he didn’t wish to know it, it was easier to think of them all as versions of Thawne as he laid them to waste.

As he marched on he tried to think of Iris, but for the first time since he left her he couldn’t picture her face. He squeezed his eyes shut against the lingering smoke in the air, and carried on walking.

“We will be forsaken,” said the young man to Barry’s left, and Barry wondered for a moment if he was addressing him. “We will all be forsaken.”

“What is your name?” Barry said, and his own voice sounded strange to him.

“We will be forsaken,” he repeated again.

“Tell me your name,” Barry said, stronger that time, and the youth finally looked at him, as if startled by his voice.

“Victor,” he said. “Means I’m the winner, but this don’t feel nothing like winning.”

At that the young man sank to his knees. He couldn’t have been older than 16. Barry reached into the side pocket of his coat, ignored the canteen, and pulled out a flask, half full, sloshing with bourbon, and he gave it to Victor, who accepted it gratefully, drinking half of it down like it was water.

“You performed admirably,” Barry said. “I saw you.”

“Saw me take lives, just like a white man, I ain’t no different.”

“Hush now,” Barry said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We need to get back, they’ll take care of us.”

Victor was quiet, and Barry couldn’t believe he had it in him to comfort the boy, feeling nearly as shattered as the stricken teenager looked. Barry was only better at pretending.

“Don’t you wish to see your family again?” Barry said, and he knew as soon as he said it that it was the wrong thing to say, what if Victor had no family? What if he’d been sold away from them young? But at Barry’s question Victor only nodded.

“My pa,” Victor said. “He all I got.”

“I promise you young Victor, you’ll see him again. But first we gotta move.”

Victor nodded again, and Barry reached for his hand, hoisting him up. At that they continued in silence, young Victor weeping all the while.

 

**Central City, 1866**

 

She wouldn’t eat a bite, no matter how he pleaded. She laid facing away from him, her knees hugged to her chest, sniffling and miserable, all the while the beef stew grew cold. He needed her to eat, even just a few bites would ease his worry, but she wouldn’t respond to even the most reasonable of requests, it was as if he wasn’t there at all. After a few more fruitless attempts to get her fed, he set the bowl aside and laid himself down behind her, taking her small, overheated body into his arms. She didn’t protest or struggle away, she let him hold her, let him lay a gentle hand on the still nearly imperceptible swell of her stomach.

His child was inside of her, it was a fact that he had to remind himself of at every moment, and with the reminder came a strange mix of anxiety, apprehension, disbelief, and the purest, deepest, most powerful love he’d ever felt. And somehow, although he was as dead then as he had been the week before, a new and curious rage over Anthony Woodward had reentered his thoughts. She’d been pregnant when he threatened her, when he threatened both of them. At the thought Barry pulled Iris closer to himself, buried his face in her hair, thanking God that they both were spared.

“It won’t be safe,” Iris said, her voice so small yet so capable of shattering him. “They’re going to hurt our baby.”

“I won’t let that happen,” he assured her, although his fears were similar to hers. Black children weren’t safe, weren’t even given the luxury of being treated like children. He thought again about little Sara, abandoned by her own grandfather, cast aside by someone meant to love her. He would never do such a thing, he would do everything in his power to care for his son or daughter, but he could not be everywhere at once, and as much as it pained him to think it, Iris was right, he couldn’t kill everyone who meant to cause his family harm, not even if he wanted to. Even as he continued to curse the dead man’s name, Iris’s confession had a strange, sobering effect on him.

Did he want his child to grow up in a world where good men solved their problems in such a primitive fashion? No, he didn’t want that, He wanted his children to know the value of true justice, even if the rest of the world didn’t uphold it. He thought of young Victor Stone at that moment, who’d been so badly traumatized by the actions he had to carry out. He’d lost an arm in the final battle, and when Barry visited with him at the medical bay, Victor insisted that it was what he deserved. Barry didn’t believe it for a moment, but he admired the boy for so respecting life, for being so just and decent even as the world was so cruel to him.

Victor had turned out as fine as he could. He lived in Jump with his father, who ran ran a small business as a watchmaker, for which the bright young man handled the books, but Barry knew deep down that the war would always haunt him, and maybe that was just it. Maybe it haunted Barry too. Maybe he had been pretending so well for so long he’d fooled himself into thinking he’d come out of it unscathed, that he’d come out of the nine years before the war unscathed too. It wasn't Anthony that Iris felt saddened about, it was Barry, and the thought that he'd lose himself in so much anger, eventually become too unlike the gentle boy she so loved once. He understood now.

“Iris,” he whispered softly, and finally she turned in his arms, facing him. The look on her face nearly broke him, her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, her lip still quivering, her face nearly scarlet. “You are precious to me, and so is our child, and I’ll protect you both, somehow I will.”

“You can’t keep doing what you did to Woodward Barry.”

“I know darlin’, I know. I just, I got lost awhile. But I’m here, and I’m ready to fight for our family, the right way. I promise you.”

“What if they’re hurt?”

He didn’t like to think about it, but he had to, he had to think of the risks. Other children might throw rocks, as if it were a game and the trickle of blood was the prize. It had happened before, to Jefferson a few years back according to Iris, and although the boy had recovered from the ordeal in the end, it could have been far worse, it had been far worse for other children, in the north and south alike. Even adults in Central city had been known to use physical violence and cruel names against children for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only a month back Harrison Wells recalled a story of seeing an eleven year old boy kicked forcefully into the dirt and spat on for accidentally stepping on an older man’s shoes, Wells had been the only one in the surrounding crowd to raise an objection to such cruelty, an objection met with apathy at best and hostility at worst. Black children were not children to them, they were barely people, and now Barry had to live with the fact that he’d helped bring one into the world.

Their baby would attend school in The Keystone, and even if they did brilliantly, which they’d certainly do with Barry and Iris for parents, they wouldn’t be able to attend the college of their choosing, or find respectable work, or do many of the same things white children grew up to do, not without working considerably harder than all of them. Iris was more intelligent and capable than most of the staff at the university, yet she was only an assistant, the sort of work Barry had been doing by his second year at the University of Pennsylvania.

And what of brilliant minds like Phyllis Wheatley, who’d published works every bit as fine and illuminating as anything by a white writer, and still died in poverty and obscurity? He’d read every single article Iris had written for the Bellwether, he knew of her talent and brilliance. If she were a white man, or even a white woman, she would be nobody’s assistant. Was that the sort of life his children would be forced to live as well? Ignored at best and abused at worst? How could he prevent it? How could he keep his child safe? Make them feel the love and respect the rest of the world would deny them? He didn’t know, but he would find a way, because there was no other choice. But for now, the only thing he could do to care for his child was getting Iris to eat.

“Iris, I know you’re miserable right now, and afraid, I am too, but you’ve gotta eat something my darlin’” He said, wiping away a stray tear.

“I feel all twisted up inside,” she said.

“I think it’s because the baby wants food, I’m sure it’ll treat you much nicer once you feed it.”

She almost smiled at that, and Barry sat up and turned to retrieve the bowl of lukewarm beef stew. “I could warm it up a little more on the stove if you’d like.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” she said, sitting up, she wiped beneath her eyes and took the bowl from him, and he breathed a small sigh of relief when she took the first bite.

  


The next couple of days passed peacefully. Barry sent a telegram to Harrison Wells requesting a bit of time off, which he was granted without trouble. Iris slept most of the first day, waking only to eat and relieve sickness, while Barry tended to the chores, thinking all the while of his son or daughter, what they might look like. They’d be beautiful, like his Iris, that much was certain. She’d told him before that she loved it already, and he immediately felt the same, perhaps he’d felt the same before he even knew of its existence.

Picturing his baby’s face was the only thing that quelled the deep fear in his gut, and not only of the type of life their baby would have, but of how he’d explain the unexpected turn of events to Joe, surely the older man wouldn’t take it well. He’d begrudgingly accepted his presence on account of Iris’s wishes, but the fact that they’d created life from sin wouldn’t be quite as easy for him to accept. As it was, Barry could only carry on in his work and deal with the consequences when they came.

When night arrived he returned to bed with the well-loved copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, written by an author the same color as that of their future child. It brought him some comfort to remind himself of that fact. He read aloud to her, the way he used to when they were very young and she still didn’t know all of the words. Now she whispered along from memory, her eyes closed, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. He so loved her smile, and hoped against hope to see it again fully.

“Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.” Barry read. He trailed off then, thinking of every wound inflicted on them both, both moral and physical. Iris was healed but still scarred, on the outside and inside, and her body, beaten bloody all those years ago, now held another. “How about we leave it there, for now?”

She opened her eyes and sat up to lean against him, she must have heard the small crack in his voice.

“I’m better now,” she assured him. He knew she wasn’t just speaking of her reaction to her pregnancy, but all of it, all of the years that had been taken from her, all of the times she’d been humiliated, and used and worked half to death, all of the things meant to break her that she’d come away from still standing. And he was in complete awe of her, as he’d been every single day since they first met, because he knew that if she hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have survived any of it, the death of his parents, the abuse at the hands of his uncle, he would have simply faded away into nothing. She was stronger than he was, and not simply because she had to be.

He kissed her, and pulled her close. They made love that night with no impediments, no fear, and fell asleep in each other’s arms the way he hoped they would for the rest of their lives.

  


 

When Joe and Wally returned from Jump, their faces were already clouded with anger and disappointment. Barry had been making breakfast for the four of them, awaiting their arrival. Joe merely huffed at him when he and Wally walked through the door, tossing their gloves on the table, sinking heavily into the dining room chairs.

“How was Jump?” Barry said, his voice a soft croak.

“Lousy,” said Wally. “Bastards paid us half what we discussed, ‘I wasn’t satisfied with your work,’ he said,” The young man continued in a haughty, mocking tone. “Like we ain’t do just as good a job as every white man they paid every penny promised to ‘em”

“Better,” Joe corrected, “And faster too.”

“Ain’t like we didn’t see it coming, happens more often than not,” Wally said, at that he kicked off his boots and tore into the story of how they’d spent two weeks working day and night, only to be disrespected and mistreated at every turn, fed only after the white men followed by the Chinamen had gotten their fill, put up at night in a shack with little protection from the cold, given the most to carry and the furthest to carry it. Yet what troubled Barry the most was how used to it all they seemed. If it had happened to him he would have seethed for days, sworn vengeance, yet to Wally and Joe it was more of the same. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t think it would matter much if he said anything at all. Not from him.

“Pa!” Iris said brightly, entering the kitchen to hug and kiss her father and brother. It was the happiest Barry had seen her in days, yet he knew that most of it was forced for their sake. Joe smiled up at his girl, as if reminding himself that his family alone was what mattered. She asked him how the rail job had gone, but he only waved at the air, trying to maintain a positive facade.

“Nothing too spectacular,” Joe said. “How ‘bout you, how’d you fare all by your lonesome?”

She hadn’t been alone, but it was clear Joe preferred to believe she had been. Iris’s eyes went slightly wider at the question. They hadn’t discussed what they’d tell Joe when he returned, possibly because neither of them wanted to consider what he might do.

“Actually, there’s something you should probably know,” she said quietly. Barry wanted to tell her to hold off, wait until they were in better spirits, but he knew her, he knew that she couldn’t keep something so monumental from her father. She’d hidden their affair for years when they were younger, but that was different, that was personal. A baby, Joe’s grandchild, Wally’s niece or nephew, that was something she simply couldn’t hide from them, even if she wanted to.

“You ain’t pregnant is you?” Joe said, jokingly, but Iris’s stonelike expression at his jest made his own face fall in an instant.

“No, no tell me it ain’t true,” Joe said, to which she didn’t respond. “Tell me it ain’t true Iris!”

She stepped back a little, and reached for Barry’s hand, which he squeezed back instinctively. He knew not to speak, that any words that came out of his mouth would only make things worse.

“Are you serious?” Wally said, his dejected look from just before suddenly brightening. “I’m going to be an uncle?”

“Looks that way,” Iris said, still quiet, still squeezing Barry’s hand.

Joe was clearly fuming, his eyes focused on Barry as if he could strangle him with a look alone, and for a moment Barry worried that maybe he could. The longer Joe gave him that look, the harder Barry found it to breathe. And the silence went from feeling necessary to feeling like too much to bear, and he opened his mouth to speak.

“I assure you I will do right by her,” Barry said, trying to keep his voice strong, steady, and utterly failing. “And my child, I wi--

But he couldn’t get another word out as Joe leapt out of his seat like a charging lion, produced his shotgun from the holster strapped around his back, and aimed it squarely at Barry’s chest.

  
**Stay Tuned Folks!**


	18. Chapter 18

 

**Iris West, Central City, 1866**

He held his hands up and started to back away slowly as Joe closed in on him, his finger on the trigger. Iris knew that he wouldn’t shoot him, but Barry didn’t, as far as Barry knew he’d be a dead man in seconds.

“Compose yourself Old man!” Iris darted to her father’s side and pushed the long barrel down until Joe was pointing at the floor.

“Not now Iris I’m tryin’ to get a word in with the boy,” Joe pointed the gun again, making Barry flinch, although he remained otherwise unmoving.

“Pa!” Iris pushed the Barrel down again, and Joe became noticeably annoyed.

“Should I go?” Barry said anxiously.

“What you tryin’ to leave for?” Joe said, pointing the gun at Barry’s chest a third time.

“You stay right there Barry, Pa, can I have a word with you outside?” She took her father’s arm forcefully and with no small hesitance, he followed.

The air was crisp and bitterly cold, making Iris wish she’d grabbed a coat on her way out, but she wouldn’t return inside until everything with her father was as settled as it could be.

“You’re mad,” she said.

“Damn right I’m mad,” Joe said, pacing back and forth as if he was looking for something to hit.

“I meant crazy,” Iris said, still not believing the display she’d just witnessed, yet believing it completely all the same.

“Oh, I’s the crazy one?” You let a white man get you pregnant and I’s the crazy one?”

She shook her head, he’d never understand. But part of her couldn’t really blame him, she barely understood herself. She took a seat on the porch steps, and looked down at her hands, her rough, strong hands that had touched so much over the years, the hands that had loved as well as fought, made cherished memories as well as cruel ones. A tear landed on her palm, and she looked back up at her father.

“Don’t think them tears is gonna soften this heart any,” he said, although he obviously found it hard to look right at her.

“Your heart’s already soft Old man, you’re just too scared to show it.”

“I ain’t scared, not for me. I’m scared for you. What happens if Woodward see that baby huh, you gonna hide it too?”

“Woodward’s dead,” Iris said. “Barry done killed him.”

Finally Joe stopped in his tracks, looking down at his miserable, conflicted daughter.

“Heh,” he said, clearly surprised. “Well he did one thing right then.”

“Don’t you go encouraging him, he’s gonna mess around and end up dead or loony if he keeps it up.”

“Better him than us.”

“Pa, why’s it so hard for you to see that that man loves me, huh? What does he have to do to to prove it to you?”

He shook his head, as if there was something Iris didn’t understand. “I know he love you Iris, he ain’t dumb, ‘course he love you, I’ll never for a second understand why you love him, how you could.”

His words hurt, because she knew exactly what he meant. How could she betray them? Not just her family, but her people.

“You remember Tulip O’Hare?” she said.

“‘Course,” Joe said.

“Well, I’m going to tell you what I told her one night four years ago.”

He let out a sharp breath, a puff of vapor escaping his mouth, and took a seat to listen

**Iris West, Somewhere Outside Of Mississippi,1863**

Iris had been posing as a traveling missionary for a little over a month, bringing the word of God to the Confederates and secretly stealing away to record their every move, their every plan. Her memory was razor sharp, she didn’t even need a pen and paper. It helped that as a black woman, the danger she posed was highly underestimated.

Iris could handle a gun better than most, her father had taught her to hunt their first few years in The Keystone, and Tulip had helped her perfect her skills in the first few days on the road. Nevertheless, Iris was no killer, she’d defend herself if she had to, but her main goal was to get the people out. It wasn’t uncommon for confederate troops to set up near the plantations, where they could be best taken care of. It was all the better for Iris to slip into the quarters before they took their leave so the families could be delivered to safe houses in the dead of night.

They’d traveled for miles after their latest mission, as far from danger and suspicion as they could get. They’d meet back up with the Union Army in a matter of days, but for the time, they could relax, take a load off and enjoy the bourbon and starlight in the middle of nowhere.

“I still haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re doing here girl. You may be able to hold your own out there good as any but that don’t mean you wouldn’t be better off at home, at that fancy newspaper of yours by day, and up under that handsome sonofabitch Scott Evans by night,” Tulip said before knocking back a drink straight from the bottle and handing it over to Iris. Tulip had only met Scott briefly, but one only needed a second’s glance at him to appreciate his beauty.

“Yeah, The great Scott Evans,” Iris said. Her voice was already a bit slurred from drink, and her braids were unwound, her wild curls loose and free. “Free his whole life and still wanna act like he was right there with me on that tree, getting his back all torn up alongside me.”

“You can’t say he had it easy as all that,” Tulip said. “A’int none of us had it easy sugar pie.”

“I know it,” Iris said. “But I swear to God if that man wouldn’t put his ideals over his heart he’d be with that sweet Korean girl at the paper. He act like I don’t know about him kissin’ on her all those times before I came around. She tells me things.”

“You tell me things too,” Tulip said. “And that Korean girl ain’t the only one he been kissin’ on.”

Iris merely shrugged. “Only happened once or twice. I was lonely, and I may not want to be Scott’s woman but that doesn’t mean I’m blind.”

“Who’s woman do ya want to be then?”

She sighed wistfully and fell back onto the bundled supplies. “Am I crazy?”

“We’re all crazy, “ Tulip said. “But all I know about that boy of yours is that he was white as snow and loved on you good. There’s gotta be more if you’ve been thinking about him all these years.”

Tulip laid herself down next to her, the both of them looking up at the stars.

“Well, he was real pretty, and skinny you know? Like a jackrabbit, but strong and fast like a stallion. He had eyes the same color as grass, and he talked to me gentle, and read to me every night until I could figure it out for myself.”

“Mmm hmm, keep on.”

“He didn’t understand, why we couldn’t love one another. To him I was just a girl and he was just a boy. But even back then I knew it wasn’t as simple as that. I always knew. It’s like when you’re black you’re born knowing nothing’s possible. And when you’re white you’re born knowing everything’s possible.”

“Well I’m both and it ain’t helped me any,” Tulip said.

Iris looked at her sympathetically, and continued. “His uncle used to beat on him all the time, sometimes for nothing at all, sometimes because Barry’d do something stupid like try to defend me, or his dead momma and daddy. He was alone, all alone and I guess he just didn’t see nothing to lose, so he’d talk mess and get beat on sometimes til he couldn’t move.”

There were tears in her throat as she talked, as she remembered, but she cleared them and kept talking. “At first I didn’t see nothing to lose either, I’d always felt so low just existing. So I decided to love him, because I figured someone ought to. But a funny thing happened.”

“What was that?”

“After a while it wasn’t a decision anymore.”

After that the only noise was the crackling fire, and the drunken, laughing chatter of Tulip’s companions. And when Iris drifted off to sleep, the last thing she thought of was him, the boy with the books.

**Iris West, Central City,1866**

He was quiet as she recalled what she’d said that night to her friend, what she’d meant completely.

“It’s not something I can help Pa,” she added. “And I don’t think I want to anymore. I just what to be with him, and the baby. I want us to be a family.”

“And you think the world’s gonna let that happen? All these years living in it and that’s what you think the world’s gonna do?”

“I don’t know what the world’s gonna do, but the parts of it that matter to me more than anything are on these steps, and in that house. Pa, I need to turn to you now, and I need you to accept this, because it’s happening, with or without you it’s happening.”

They sat together in silence as her hands grew chilled, the tips of her ears and nose too. She wished he’d say something, that he understood, or that he didn’t, anything at all, instead he sjust stood up and started toward the woods.

“Where are you going?” she called after him.

“If I ain’t gonna shoot that boy I’m sure as hell gonna shoot somethin’,” He said, not looking back. She sighed deeply and returned to the house.

Joe didn’t return home, not until after hours later. She’d gone from feeling mad, to guilty and back again. She was a grown woman, as good as a veteran, who made her own money and paved a way where there wasn’t one, how could her own father think so little of her that he couldn’t imagine her ability to protect her own child? Well she would, she’d do better than protect it, she’d give it a real chance, and she’d do it with her words, somehow she would. She may have been up too late that night, gotten her head all turned around, because well after mignight she found herself shaking Barry awake.

“Hmm?” He murmured sleepily. “What is it darlin?”

“What do you think about me writing a book? For our baby? Something like what we used to read?”

His eyes were a little wider and clearer a second later, and he sat up to face her, a smile on his lips. “I think you know just how I feel about that.”

It was more than she needed, much much more. She hadn’t expected to be a mother, but somehow the thought of it didn’t compell her to become complacent and reserved to only care for her child. That would come first, surely, but caring for them would have to mean more than feeding and clothing them, more than even teaching them. She wanted to be an example for them, she wanted to show them that being born a certain way didn’t have to define them for the rest of their lives, that they didn’t have to submit to a life of despair. And she wanted to prove to her father that the world did have room for them all, that she could make it so.

 

She started to feel it move inside of her the same week she’d finished work on Wells’s book. It was barely anything at all, but it was enough, enough to bring a smile to her lips in the middle of going over final edits with Wells, enough to make her brave.

“Something the matter?” He said as she stopped to clutch her stomach, round and full but still able to be covered under certain garments. She’d told no one outside of Barry, Pa, Wally, and Cait Raymond, and didn’t plan on it until she absolutely had to. With the weather getting warmer every day, the task wouldn’t prove so easy.

“I’m just fine,” she said. “So, are you pleased Professor?”

“I am,” He said. “I will send copies out at once.”

“Well, I am quite honored,” she said.

“Have you thought more about what capacity you’d serve on the campus in the coming year?” He said, resting his pen on the desk.

And as much as she appreciated Wells’s offer, she could be only an assistant no longer, now was the time to write her own story.

“I’m going to write a book Mr. Wells,” she said.

“A book? What sort?”

“A fiction, an adventure story.”

“I didn’t know of your interest.”

“It was my first love. Although I suppose journalism is my fiercest, but it won’t merely be a fiction, there will be elements taken from life, from history and political discourse. If you’ve ever really read Gulliver’s Travels you’d know it isn’t just a fantasy. It has something else to say.”

“What is your book to be about?”

She’d thought long and hard about it, about Alexandre Dumas, Mary Shelly, those who’d come before her and torn down the thickest of walls to deliver their stories to the world, stories so fantastic nobody could resist them, no matter the race or gender of those who’d penned them, she would do that too, she would weave her own yarn to regale her children with, and it would be every bit as good. She stood up to begin, and paced back and forth in the area before his desk.

“My story is to be about a common boy, of undefined race, black in my mind but free for any reader to project their own image onto. Let's call him Jake.

“Continue,” he said once she’d paused for response.

“My hero loses his brother in a tragedy, and the grief-stricken boy runs away to be a part of a dangerous mission, one that could mean certain death. A boat expidition perhaps. And lets say there’s a storm, a tempest, and the boat capsizes.”

He looked intrigued, so she persisted.

“But he doesn’t die, he ends up in an alternate realm. And this world is quite unlike his own, it’s a magical world, full of creatures, and enchanted castles and dashing heroes”

Wells began to lean forward a little in his chair and Iris was encouraged.

“Although this world isn’t all that it seems, there are dangerous secrets in it.”

“What sort of dangerous secrets?”

“Well, by some magic, or miracle, his brother is there, let's call him Jack. And while Jack has no memory of him, Jake manages to win back his fondness anyway. The only other dilemma is that Jack isn’t free, he has this mark, something he’s had ever since arriving in this mysterious place, and in this world, people with that mark are condemned to be held captive by a murderous king. Now the only way to save Jack is to bring him back to the real world, if only he can find his way.”

“How does he plan to do it?” Wells said, his eyes wide and focused.

She sat back down, looking satisfied with herself, twining her fingers together and setting them on her lap. “Well, you’d have to read it wouldn’t you?”

He almost looked disappointed. “So what I’m gleaning from all this, other than the fact that yours is quite the wild imagination, is that you don’t plan to stay with the university.”

“Well, I could certainly use its resources, pens and paper and whatnot. And I’d need a sponser, I was hoping perhaps you could be it.”

“Well, I have full belief in you, know that, but I am afraid that fiction has never quite been my element.”

She smiled sadly, she’d figured as much, but that wouldn’t stop her. Somehow she’d realize her vision.

“Although my brother has found considerable success in that field," Wells continued. "He is currently in England with my daughter Jessica, his niece. She’s a first year student at Oxford.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” she said.

“A twin, I don’t speak of him much, he’s a rather vexing personality if we’re being honest, but talented with a pen I must admit. Perhaps I can send word about you.”

And she’d known the moment her baby kicked that the news would be good.

 

She was no longer in a condition to ride her horse, and most carriages didn’t take black fares, so Barry had purchased her a small one to get back and forth from the university. It wasn’t an image that sat well with the students who watched her come and go. They already thought of her as an uppity sort who refused to know her place, a carriage only heightened those feelings, but for once she was finding it difficult to care. They were never violent, they used only their pathetic words, and the carriage was covered for privacy so that she couldn't be seen outside of the university grounds.

In any case she remained unperturbed on her ride home. Perhaps it was Wells’s encouragement, or perhaps it was simply the happy emotions associated with being a vessel for another human life, emotions that had finally taken hold once the fear and confusion had begun to subside. She didn't expect it to last. It undoubtedly wouldn't take long to once again realize just how much it hurt that her father remained so cold and distant. He was spending more and more time at Miss Cecile's, as much for the purpose of avoiding Iris as nursing his affection for the woman. Truthfully she expected the anguish to return at any moment, but until it did, she’d enjoy and welcome her elation.

When she returned home, Wally was out front, hammering away at his project. He’d never inspected a carriage so closely before, and since Barry brought it home the young man became certain he could build one himself. Iris had to admit he’d gotten farther along than she’d expected in less time, although what he planned to do with it once it was completed she wasn’t sure.

“Hello Wally,” She said, after porting the carriage. “You seem to be getting along well.”

“It aint so hard,” he said. “By the way, you got company, some Chinawoman.”

Linda, Iris thought. She’d been out of state a few months, engaging in the sort of escapades Iris had only dreamed of. But she had to admit it would be good to see her.

“She’s from Korea, they ain’t all from China Wally,” she said, and he shrugged and continued to hammer.

Linda was sitting across from Barry at the table. She looked different, more finely dressed and groomed than Iris remembered, not a smudge of ink in sight. She stood up to greet Iris with a hug.

“You’ve been waiting on me long?” Iris said.

“Not long at all,” Linda said. “In any case your Barry is wonderful company.”

He stood up as well, pressed a kiss to Iris’s temple and started at taking her jacket, pausing for permission. She nodded, thinking Linda could certainly be trusted with the news of their development.

“I’ll make you some tea,” Barry said as Linda stood there, speechless at the sight of her old friend’s swollen middle.

“Oh my,” Linda said. “Oh this is wonderful Iris!”

“It _is_ wonderful,” Iris said.

“But,” Linda started, hesitantly. “Have you thought at all about--

“Not today Linda, I’m in too good a mood,” Iris cut her off, taking a seat.

Linda pressed her lips together, slightly embarrassed.

“So, any good news from Frisco?” Iris said.

“None unfortunately, I was there so briefly, and barely left the Inn.”

“Briefly?” Iris said. “You were gone six months.”

“Gone, yes, but not in Frisco, I spent most of my time in New York.”

“New York?” And the look on Linda’s face at the question was enough to tell Iris where the conversation was heading.

“Scott Evans wants to reopen The Bellwether,” Linda said with hesitance.

“In New York? With you?” Iris said, and Linda nodded.

“And without me?” Iris continued, to which Linda nodded again.

“Please don’t be angry, if you’re angry I won’t even dream of accepting," Linda said.

But she wasn’t angry, not really, not with so much going on. She wanted to return to journalism, and she planned to once the baby arrived, but for now the work was too strenuous, involved too much running about, and as dear as she’d once held her working relationship with Scott, she knew that it could never be the same as it was. And above all, she was happy for Linda, and The paper itself, just the thought of it having a second chance was enough to bring peace to her mind.

“I’m not angry,” Iris said. “I wish you only the best.”

“And you as well, of course,” Linda said, looking relieved. And Iris couldn’t help but wonder what else had transpired between them in New York, whether Iris’s old friend Scott had learned to put his heart first after all. It was all she’d ever truly wanted for him, to know that deep down, he never would have been happy with Iris either.

After reminiscing a bit, and sharing stories of their various exploits during their seperation, Iris sent Linda on her way. Barry had started supper, and Iris stood to help, although she had to admit that Barry had become a fine cook in his own right. His meals may not have been as rich, hearty and soulful as hers, but he was adept at seasonings and measurements, and had impressive control of temperature, it was the scientist in him.

“You should rest,” he said. “You’ve had a long day.”

“I’m not made of China,” she said, and grabbed an apron from the hook, he gave her a small, aqcuiescing sigh and proceeded.

“Before I forget,” she said, starting at cutting the carrots. “I felt it kicking today.”

“You did? Honest?”

“Honest.”

He stopped what he was doing and stepped close to lay a firm hand on her stomach.

“Well it isn’t kicking now,” she said in amusement.

“No, but perhaps if he feels his father near he’ll start up again.”

“Still so convinced its a boy, just like a man to assume a boy, what if it’s a girl?”

“My mother once said that if a woman carries high then to expect a boy.”

“I’m not carrying high, if anything I’m somewhere in the middle.”

“Hmm,” he said, his expression growing somewhat pensive.

“What?”

“Well, perhaps it’s both.”

She swatted his arm playfully. “Don’t say such things Bartholomew Allen, you wanna give me a stroke?”

“I’m only fooling,” he said, laughter in his voice. “Besides, one son is blessing enough.”

“Or a daughter,” she insisted.

“Or a daughter,” he finally relented. And they continued at their work.

“So,” he said, a little more seriously a moment later. “Are you sure you aren’t upset, about them restarting the paper without you.”

She smiled to give him some reassurance. “It was always Scott’s paper, besides, maybe once the baby’s here, and I’ve finished my story, I can start up my own. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Yeah,” he said warmly. “It sure would.”

**Stay Tuned Folks!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some of you enjoy the Wally/Linda ship, I do too, but unlike Westallen I'm kind of a multishipper for the both of them, and since I've decided how this story is going to end, I figured it's safe to say there's a reason I mentioned Jesse twice now.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man it's good to be back! I had to take a break from fanfic while I finished a particularly grueling semester. Sorry in advance that the new chapter isn't longer, considering how long you had to wait for it, but we're two chapters and an epilogue away from the end, so thank you all for following, liking and commenting, you're the best!

**Barry Allen, Central City, November 1866**

It was a decidedly average morning in late Autumn, nothing to wake them from their slumber but the rustling of trees outside. He opened his eyes to see Iris sleeping peacefully next to him, her firm, round belly pressed against his. As always his smile came almost involuntarily at the sight of her, safe, warm and happy beside him.

Iris hadn’t been up and about much, needing as much rest and serenity as possible in the final days. Barry and Wally had tended to the house in her stead, while Iris spent full days in bed, reading and writing, making her baby calm. Although Barry still wondered silently to himself if his jest had been correct after all, and there was more than one baby inside of her. Considering she was larger in the middle than what was common, he’d started to suspect it with greater seriousness day by day. He didn’t discuss his suspicion with her, fragile as her senses were in her condition. She was as quick to tears as laughter, erupting at the smallest troubles. But how he loved her, how he needed her. The closer she came to the birth date the more he worried. What if there were complications? A proper doctor would never see her. It was a thought that continued to plague him even as he tried his hardest to remain strong and positive for her.

“I know you’re starin’ again,” she said sleepily, her eyes still shut against the amber sunshine pouring through the window.

“You give me no choice,” he said, putting her fingers up to his lips and kissing them firmly. “You get prettier every day.”

“Fatter you mean,” she opened her big brown eyes and smiled with them.

“You’re beautiful,” he insisted. “You need to accept it darlin’”

She kissed him softly and ruffled his hair. “I swear to God you--

She stopped mid thought, her face suddenly twisted, her hand reaching her stomach.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” He sat up, ready to fetch her anything she needed.

“I-- Oh, Barry I--” She sat up, her hand pressing firmly on her lower abdomen. She looked up at him, half smiling, half grimacing in pain. “I think it’s time.”

 "You're sure?" He touched her, hope and fear in his eyes.

"A woman knows," she once more folded in on herself, wincing sharply.

 

It was hours before her water broke, and longer before the pain grew too fierce for her to tolerate. He stood beside her all the while, his hand clutched in hers as she tried her best to breathe.

“I need to give you something,” he insisted. “Something for the pain.”

“No!” she shot back, rocking back and forth. “It’ll harm the baby. I’m alright I promise.”

But he wasn’t sure that he believed her. He hated seeing her that way, hurting with nothing at all that he could do. He stroked her sweaty forehead, kissed her hair, let her squeeze his hand until it turned almost pure white against her brown skin, but it wasn’t enough to stop her crying, to make her better.

And it wasn’t until he saw the blood, that he knew they needed help.

“Wally!” He called frantically. The younger man appeared quickly, as worried for his sister as Barry was.

“What can I do?” he said.

“She’s bleeding too much. Fetch help, find a midwife.”

“I don’t know any black midwives. Ain’t no white one gonna tend to her.”

“Cait Raymond,” Iris choked out, her voice pained and labored. “Find Cait Raymond, at the medicine shop outside of town. And get Daddy, I don’t care if he doesn’t want to see me, you make him come.

Wally sprinted away And Barry was left alone with her. She didn’t look good, she was pale, fevered, and sweating through the covers.

“You’re gonna be just fine, I promise. Just breathe darlin’ can you do that for me?”

She nodded sharply, squeezing his hand. She breathed in and out to the best of her ability, but he saw how she struggled.

He’d read everything available to him about childbirth, but found most of it unhelpful, lacking in detail. He knew what to do if everything went according to plan, but already there was trouble. She wasn’t dilated enough to push, and she was losing more blood than expected. He didn’t know how to help her. But Cait Raymond, the name was hauntingly familiar, and brought as much confidence to his mind as possible. Iris seemed to believe she could help, so he tried to believe it too.

By the time Wally arrived, nearly one agonizing hour later, Joe and Cait by his side, Barry breathed a sigh of relief. It was the woman, the woman who’d helped him, gave him a place to rest one morning a lifetime ago, but as she looked at Iris, he couldn’t help but wonder if she could be counted on again.

“What’s happened to her?” Joe said. It had been months since Barry saw the man in Iris’s doorway. His face was stricken with panic and apology, but Iris couldn't have looked happier to see him.

“Pa," she said, her voice weak.

“I’m here Iris, I’m right here,” the older man said, rushing to her side.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Barry said, tears springing to his own eyes. “You have to help us Cait.”

“This is the one you rode three straight days to find.” Cait said, a statement, not a question.

“Mrs. Raymond please,” he repeated. Iris was starting to look withdrawn, she wasn't talking anymore, and her eyes were glazed. If he lost her, he wouldn’t survive, he knew he wouldn’t, yet the one person who knew what to do looked hesitant to help, stuck in the doorway like there was something in the room she could catch.

“You didn’t tell me everything,” she said to Wally. "I was under the impression your mistress sent you."

“What does that matter? She asked for you, she needs you. None of us ever delivered no baby before,” Wally said.

Cait shook her head. “No, I’ve done enough, take me back to my shop,” she said. And as she turned to leave, Barry’s heart sank.

“It’s alright, it’s gonna be alright,” he kissed Iris' hand and got up to follow Cait. “I’ll be right back.

Although she was severely weakened, Iris clutched his hand so tight it took some struggle to get free.

“Stay with her, keep her calm,” he said to Joe and Wally before following Cait.

“Mrs. Raymond, Mrs. Raymond,” he ran behind her as she darted outside. It was almost evening, the day had nearly passed in all the commotion.

“Is someone going to take me back or what?”

“I don’t understand, what’s the problem?”

“I’ve always been kind to her, I’ve always been good to those people,” she turned around to face him. “They’re the reason my husband’s dead, but God help me I’ve always been good to them.”

“Now hold on--

“I will not bring another one into this world, I refuse,” her voice shook hard, and she sounded almost guilty, but her guilt didn’t matter to him, not when she was telling him to his face that she’d rather let Iris die. He hated asking her for anything, he wanted to send her on her way and never think of her again, but Iris needed help, and Cait was the only one who could.

“She’ll die, we can’t do this alone,” he tried not to let the anger coursing within him reach his eyes, he tried not to raise his voice.

She shook her head. “I can’t. I won’t. And if someone doesn’t take me back right now I’ll walk.”

His jaw clenched. She wouldn't help them, it was pointless to waste time with her, not when Iris still needed him.

“Well I guess you ought to walk then,” he said, and turned back toward the house.

“Wait!” she cried, and he reluctantly turned to face her.

“Anissa Pierce,” she continued. “She’s a colored midwife, about a mile down the road from you, the owner of the medicine shop sells her baby products. “Find her, she’ll help you.”

He didn’t say another word to her as he ran to the carriage.

 

Barry had to knock on three doors before he found someone who knew where Anissa Pierce lived. When he knocked on the midwife’s door and a brunette white woman answered, he was sure that he’d gotten the wrong house.

“I’m looking for Ms. Pierce,” he asked anyway, in case he wasn’t wrong after all.

“'Nissa!” the woman called behind her. After what felt like too long, a beautiful young black woman appeared at the brunette’s side. She looked alert and confident, easy to trust, although it could have easily been his desperation driving him to put his faith in a woman he'd only just met.

“Who is this man Alexandra?” Anissa asked.

“Some stranger,” said Alexandra.

“We need your help,” Barry said.

“And who is we?” Said Anissa.

“Me and my wife,” said Barry. It wasn’t true, but it felt truer than anything. And it wasn't as if he'd meant to lie. Those were simply the words that felt right to say. She was his and he was her’s and that was that. “She’s having a baby, but she’s in distress. I don’t know what’s wrong, she’s bleeding something awful. I need you to help us, please.”

Alexandra placed her hand gently on Anissa’s back. “Please 'Nissa, look at him, he’s awful distraught isn’t he?”

“I’d say so,” Anissa said. “Come with me Alexandra, I could use your brain.” They left Barry alone on the porch for several moments while they gathered up supplies, and all the while he tried to remain calm and breathe. It didn't seem real, becoming a father, welcoming a family after so many years adrift. He remembered how alone he felt after his parents died, how far off the possibility of having a home and unconditional love again seemed to him then. Now it was close enough to touch, all they needed was for practical strangers to come through for them. Iris's life, the life of his child, was in their hands.

Once they gathered their tools and their clean, white aprons, Barry and the women piled into the carriage and raced toward his home, toward his Iris. He had to believe that everything would be alright, he had to believe that they would live.

 

Iris was still conscious at least when they returned, but that was all there was to be optimistic about. Her breathing was shallow, she looked dazed and in worse pain than ever. He rushed to her side as Anissa and Alexandra got to work, talking quickly and with authority between themselves, giving demands to the men in the room.

“We need towels, lots of towels,” said Alexandra.

“You,” Anisa continued, looking at Barry. “Out of the room.”

“What, why?”

“You’re too out of sorts, she doesn’t need that stress on her.”

“But i--

“Barry, please just listen to the woman,” Iris said in a hurried, anguished voice. It took every shred of his remaining logic to even consider leaving her. But once he took the required time to think on it he realized that the need to stay was more for his own benefit than hers. He was useless to her in his worried state. And just a few minutes with the competent, composed women in the room seemed to make her better. So he sighed heavily, and bent at the waist to press his trembling lips against hers. He then squeezed her hand and reluctantly pulled himself away.

“Please, please take care of her, take care of our child.” he said to Anissa.

“We’ll do everything we can,” Anissa said.

 

Joe and Wally sat outside the room in chairs brought from the kitchen. Barry was surprised that there was an extra one sitting there for him. He sank down heavily onto it, trying to keep his mind in tact. So much had happened, and it still wasn’t done happening. With every scream he heard from the other side of the door his heart raced faster, his eyes went wider in worry. He hated it, feeling so helpless, but he had to trust that everything would work out alright, that God would spare them. Barry knew that He wouldn’t be cruel enough to punish him this way. If God meant to make him suffer as he made Anthony suffer, then going through Iris was far too sadistic, more a job for the devil than God.

Just then, he was shocked out of his thoughts by Joe’s large hand on his thin shoulder. Barry turned his head to look at the man.

“I remember this. This feelin' like everything's out of your hands. I was here twice before."

"Can't stay I much like it," Barry said.

Joe shook his head, looking guilty and sad. "I should have been here, I should have been around."

“You were upset.”

“Don’t matter, it ain’t about me, wasn’t ever about me.”

“Pa, she’ll make it through. She’s strong just like you taught her to be,” Said Wally.

“But if she don’t--

“She will, she--

“If she _don’t_ ,” Joe persisted, stopping Barry’s words in their tracks. “You will do right by that little girl or boy, y’hear? I don’t care how mad at the world you is for taking her, you do right by that baby.”

“I will,” Barry said. “I promise I will.”

Joe nodded, a new understanding between the two men.

 

It seemed as if hours passed, days even. Barry had lost count of the number of times he launched himself out of his seat to pace the hallway, his mind racing with agonized thoughts. Wally had went downstairs to make them all coffee, as much to be accommodating as to occupy his hands, which shook with the worry they all felt. But even as Barry was grateful for the younger man's gesture, the coffee grew cold in his hands. He chose instead to bite his nails down to the skin. Every minute that ticked by was another small assault on his nerves. And after too long Iris's occasional wailing from the other side of the door was as much a relief as a concern, because at the very least it meant that she was still breathing. At what must have been well past midnight, when the world around them was silent as death, and Joe struggled to keep his eyes open, the two women finally left the room, their aprons bloody, their hair disheveled and to Barry's immense relief, a baby each in their arms.

“Meet your little boy,” Said Alexandra.

“And your little girl,” Added Anissa. It was true, they were twins, two of the most beautiful children he’d ever seen in his life. Tiny, squishy, pinkish brown babies with heads full of thick black hair. His children, his life. He stood up to meet them, to gently touch their hair and kiss their tightly balled fists, to thank God a million times for them.

“And Iris?” He asked, needing her to be alright, needing her to meet them.

“She’s resting good,” Said Anissa. “I reckon she’ll be just fine when all’s said and done.”

“I want one,” said Alexandra, looking down at the boy. “I mean, not yours of course, my own.”

“However will we manage that,” said Anissa, looking at Alexandra tenderly, and it was starting to become clear to him that the women were lovers, that them helping Iris was inevitable. They too knew what it was to love in secret, to have only each other. He wanted to hug them both for several minutes, to thank them infinitely, but before anything else he had to see Iris.

"She isn't your wife, is she?" Anissa asked.

He shook his head, but she didn't say another word, only smiled, seemingly pleased as he was to meet another who knew just how he felt.

Alexandra gave the boy to Wally, and Anissa gave the girl to Barry, and they all went back into the room slowly and quietly. The covers had been changed and Iris was sleeping peacefully within them. Barry was careful not to wake her as he sat by her side, holding his daughter in his arms.

“This is your momma,” He said quietly to the baby girl. “She’s beautiful isn’t she? Just like you.”

A moment later Iris's eyes fluttered open, and she looked tiredly and lovingly up at the tiny little thing in Barry’s arms. “Hi pretty girl,” she said. “Or is that my little man?”

“My nephew’s over here,” Wally said.

“You gonna let me hold him ever or what?” Joe said.

“When I’m finished.”

“Pa,” Iris said. “You came back?”

“You thought I’d miss this? Half white or not, they my grandbabies.”

She smiled sweetly before drifting off to sleep again, and Barry stayed beside her, thanking God again and again.

 

**Stay Tuned Folks!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Alex/Anissa is the very definition of a crackship, they're on different shows, one of which hasn't premiered yet (although I'm psyched for it) and is on a different network. But they would be just gorgeous together, wouldn't they? Oh well, a girl can dream. Also, it took a lot of debating whether or not I'd write Caitlin this way in the eleventh hour, but she's so firmly on my shit list now that it wasn't as hard as I thought. Sorry to any Caitlin fans reading this, and know that my feelings about her now aren't necessarily permanent. Lastly, for anyone reading Heart in A Cage, that will also be updated soon.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long wait for a short chapter (although I tend to make edits to my chapters after posting, so maybe check back in a few days), but were almost there guys! Thank you again for keeping up with this story, I appreciate it more than I can say.

**Iris West, Central City, 1873**

 

The children couldn’t sleep. It was to be expected the night before the fair. They had never been to one before, and as the evening wore on, they bounced atop their separate beds, brimming with questions and excited eyes.

“Will there be candy?”

“And pies?”

“Can I see the acrobats?”

“And the bears?”

“Bears?” Iris said, looking at her daughter with an amused grin. “What makes you so sure there’ll be bears?”

“Poppa said when the fair came when he was little, there was a bear, on a chain,” Said little Nora Dawn.

“Well that sounds mean,” Iris said. “Bears belong in the wild, not to be paraded around for our amusement.”

“I like bears,” Said Joseph Donovan. “I want to see one too.”

“Well, you better not get too close, they may look friendly but those teeth and those claws of theirs ain’t for nothing.”

“If I had a bear, he wouldn’t bite. He’d be a good bear,” Said Don.

“I bet the one at the fair is good,” Said Dawn.

“Well, we’ll never find out if you two don’t get yourselves to bed. You’re going to mess around and sleep through the whole day.”

“I can’t sleep,” said the girl. “Why can’t it be morning now?”

Iris only smiled, if only to further calm the worried thoughts that occasionally crept into her mind. There was a reason the children had never been to the Central City annual fair. Before they were too young to understand, why they couldn’t call their father “poppa” in a big crowd where anyone could hear, why keeping to themselves was so important. Still, she worried, that the excitement of it all might be enough for one of them to reveal themselves, or find some other matter of trouble.

“Alright children, what should you remember tomorrow?”

“Poppa is called Mr. Barry, not poppa,” Don said, the boy didn’t seem bothered by the rule, neither did Dawn, to them it was something of a game, like the way they insisted on being called by their middle names, Don and Dawn – She’d made a few changes to her story once the children were born, and they loved to act out the adventures of the twins in the book, named for them all those years ago— Still, it hurt Iris that the children and their father couldn’t acknowledge each other fully in public.

“That’s right,” Iris said. She sat on the side of Don’s bed, gesturing for him to lie down. The boy obeyed and she tucked him in tight and pressed a kiss to his forehead. She then crossed the room to Dawn’s bed and did the same.

“Can you read to us?” Dawn said past a heavy yawn.

“What would you like to hear tonight?” Iris said, although she was sure she already knew.

“Don and Dawn,” Don said.

“Yeah, that one, please momma?” said Dawn.

“I’m surprised you don’t know it by heart by now,” Iris said, finding the still-unpublished manuscript on the shelf. One day she was sure her story would find its audience, perhaps when the children were older, and Iris wasn’t so busy at the University, or tending to the house and the family. She hadn’t expected to serve as professor Wells’s assistant for quite so long, but the pay was good, and it allowed her to remain close to Barry during the day. And she had to admit, there was a certain comfort in the stability. Still, would her story ever see the light of day? Would she ever have a newspaper of her own? She couldn’t help but wonder.

“It was a golden summer day, not unlike many others that young Don had enjoyed alongside his beloved sister. The two were inseparable ever since the blessed morning they were brought into the world, one right behind the other. They were siblings as well as partners in adventure, exploring the wide open spaces surrounding the lovely home they shared with their momma and poppa…” Iris read aloud to them.

About halfway through the second chapter, the children’s eyes had fluttered closed and stayed that way, and Iris felt safe to close the book, kiss her children’s heads, and tiptoe slowly out of the room.

Dawn and Don had taken Joe’s old bedroom, after the older man married Miss Cecile and moved into her home. Perhaps once Wally completed his apprenticeship at Central City University, and went into business for himself, he could build the home he’d so often dreamed of, and the children could have rooms of their own. But for the time being, they didn’t seem to mind sharing. It was one of the many reasons she loved them so.

They were precious the two of them, Nora Dawn with her lovely sandy brown curls and a pair of spectacles framing her wide green eyes, Joseph Donovan with his spindly limbs and big, warm smile. And they were so clever, because of course they would be. Dawn loved to read, and hoped to be a writer one day, but not a journalist and novelist like her mother, rather a poet and writer of lyrics, as well as a painter. She loved to paint flowers the most, and her lovely work hung all about the house.

Don was as enamored with the world around him as his father had once been, it wasn’t uncommon for the boy to return from school with some new specimen; a grasshopper, a jar of tadpoles from the pond, even once a lizard. He logged his findings in a book that Wally had given him the previous Christmas, and it was nearly half full.

 

 

Iris found Barry in their bedroom, fast asleep with his copy of _Finding Infinity_ , the book she’d written with Wells so long ago. He’d since learned the truth about her involvement, although he and the family were the only ones who were permitted to know. She’d co-written two more books with Wells since, neither of which boasted her name, although they were taught in classes all across the country. She could only hope that one day the world could learn the truth.

She gently took the book from Barry, and got under the covers to nestle into his side, although he didn’t wake, his arm seemed to find its way around her, and his head turned so he could touch his lips to her forehead, it was instinctive at that point. They were simply drawn together by some force outside of them, and it was everything good in the world.

 

 

The fairgrounds were full and lively once the family arrived the next day. Stilt walkers circled them, one with a guitar, another with a fire baton, yet another juggling bottles. Peddlers sold their various wares; flower crowns and costume charms, candies and roasted meats on spits, and the twins pointed out every passing curiosity, their eyes frantic with the need to see it all at once.

“Look!” Don exclaimed, running ahead of them.

“Wait!” Barry cried before Iris stopped him with one hand.

“Never mind Barry,” she said, already noticing the looks, she noticed them every time it was the four of them together, she noticed them so often she started to wonder if she was imagining things. In spite of her fine clothes, they probably assumed Iris worked for him, and that their children were only hers, and it broke her heart a little more each day. “I’ll go with Joseph, can you stay with Nora? I’ll be right back.”  
  
She started after her boy, her longer legs allowing her to catch up to him after a few quick strides. There was a wagon in the middle of the commotion of the fairgrounds, it was nearly as big as a room, with a fold out stage. The words _Dibny’s Medicine Show_ were emblazoned on the side of the wagon in purple, blue and gold letters, and a tall man with a mop of bright red hair, wearing a flamboyant purple suit,  was peddling some miracle serum. Don stood behind the big crowd, trying to stand on his tiptoes and get a better look at the stage.

“Step right up everyone!” said the man onstage as Iris came up beside Don, grabbing the young boy’s hand. “Behold the miracle of Gingold’s Elixir.” He continued. “The wonder tonic proven to alleviate joint pain, increase flexibility and strength, and restore energy. With some help from my lovely assistant, please allow me to demonstrate.”

“I wanna see momma!” Don said. “Lift me up on your shoulders.”

Iris smiled warmly down at the boy, and crouched to let him straddle the back of her neck with his skinny legs. She stood up then, holding her hat with one hand, and the boys ankle with the other as she steadied herself.

As Iris looked upon the stage again, an extremely familiar woman emerged from inside the wagon. Her hair was pale blonde, almost white, and she wore a sparkly blue dress. She held a glass bottle of the tonic in one hand, and a tumbler of ice in the other. She poured the elixir over the ice and handed it to her partner, who drank it down in three swallows.

“Please take my jacket Ms. Frost,” He said, setting the glass down on a small, round table, he shrugged off the purple garment and handed it to her. She hung it on a rack behind her and he began to swing his arms back and forth and kick his legs out, loosening his long limbs. Then he laid on the stage, his knees bent and his legs tucked behind him, his elbows flexed and his hands planted on the stage.

“You know what to do Ms. Frost," he said.

Ms. Frost, who Iris still couldn’t place, although she was sure she knew her from somewhere, picked her dress up in front, and stepped onto the man’s torso. She stood straight on top of his chest and the man began to rise until he was standing backwards on all fours, lifting her up along with him. The audience gasped and clapped, and began to dig into their pockets for coins.

“I can see we have some takers already,” Ms. Frost announced with a cool smile, and at the sound of her voice, that cold, elegant voice, Iris knew exactly where she remembered the woman from.  Ms. Frost was Cait Raymond, the woman who abandoned Iris and her children in their moment of need.

“Let’s go find your poppa and sister,” Iris said, nearly breathless.

“But I wanna see till the end,” Don said, Iris ignored the boy, turning away, her son still on her shoulders, but Cait must have spotted them, because in her peripheral vision, Iris saw the woman hop off of the man’s torso and off of the stage.

“Wait!” Cait yelled after Iris, but she kept moving, letting Don down so the two could move faster through the crowd. “Ms. West wait.”

“I got nothin’ to say to you,” Iris said hurriedly, shuffling through the crowd.

“Please, please wait,” Cait said, placing a hand on Iris’s shoulder. Iris turned sharply, glaring at Cait. It had been nearly six years since Iris had seen Cait, but if she never laid eyes on her again it would be too soon.

“How dare you?” Iris seethed under her breath, the last thing she wanted was to be overheard yelling at a white woman in public. Luckily the crowd was too busy throwing money at Cait’s partner to pay the two women much mind.

“Who is she momma?” Don said sweetly.

“Nobody,” said Iris.

Cait squeezed her eyes shut in what looked like shame and opened them again. “I deserve that,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I don’t know what came over me that day.”

“I do,” Iris said. “The same thing that’s in damn near all of you, I’m just lucky the father of my babies isn’t so inclined.”

“I thought I was better,” Cait said. “Ronnie thought I was better too. When he died I just—

“Listen, Cait” Iris said, stopping her. “I’m sure you’re sorry, I am. But it doesn’t matter, what happened happened, my beautiful little boy and girl could have died, I could’ve died and for what? Because you’re mad at the world for taking your husband? I’ve lost things too, I lost my start in life, my dignity, but I don’t let it change me.”

“Cait, what’s going on over here?”

Iris looked at the Red-haired man who’d just been on stage. She’d been so heated she hadn’t even heard him approach.

“Nothing at all,” Cait said, forcing a smile. “Why don’t you go work the crowd some more?”

At that, he smiled warmly at her, and the two exchanged a quick kiss before he disappeared into the crowd again.

“I remarried,” Cait said. “You were right, I was mad at the world and I took it out on you, and your lovely boy and what I’m assuming is your lovely girl. And when I was blessed with Mr. Dibny I realized how awful I’d been, and how little I deserved to be happy again, but—

 _“Nora! Nora Dawn!”_ At the sound of Barry’s anguished voice in the distance, Iris’s eyes went wide in fear. What had happened? Why was he yelling the girl’s name? She turned away from Cait, not wanting to hear anymore of the woman’s useless pleading. She had to get to her daughter, and her Barry.

 _“Unhand her!”_ Barry wailed next.

 _“Poppa!”_ Dawn cried, and Iris rushed faster through the crowd, she had forgotten to call him Mr. Barry, something was very wrong, Iris pulled Don behind her, and he rushed to keep up, until they reached the commotion. A older, snarling, red-faced man had Dawn by the wrist, and the girl was crying, trying to pull away, Dawn’s wrist slipped from his tight grasp, sending her to the ground, her spectacles landing in the dirt. Barry pushed the man hard, and went for his crying daughter.

“Poppa!” she cried again, and Barry scooped her up in his arms. Her stocking was torn, revealing a skinned knee, and Barry kissed her tears as she hugged his neck tight.

“It’s alright,” he whispered. “You’re gonna be alright angel.”

“She’s a thief!” the red-faced man snarled.

“She’s a child!” Barry barked. “And you’re a fiend.”

“I didn’t mean it poppa,” she said, sniffling and hiccupping. “I was gonna give him the money you gave me.”

“What is the meaning of all this?” Said Iris. “What has he done to Nora?”

“She took a wooden horse from the stand,” Barry said, nodding toward a stand of carved animals. A small wooden horse had fallen into the dirt near where Dawn’s glasses had fell, “But it was only to purchase it.”

“Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe that?” said the man. “Unhand her, I’ll have her jailed for this.”

“You will not come near her!” Barry said. Dawn only cried harder, nestling her face into her father’s neck. The crowd surrounding them was quiet now, none of them seeming to take much issue with a grown man assaulting an innocent little girl. Iris swallowed hard, once again cruelly reminded of the world her children lived in.

“Barry, we should go,” Iris said. And Barry looked to either side of him.

“What are you all looking at?” Barry said bitterly. “As you were!”

They began to scatter, and Don let go of Iris’s hand to fetch Dawn’s spectacles, holding them safe while he took his mother’s hand again.

“You’re right,” Barry said. “We should go.”

It had been a bad idea to take them, she knew that now. But she wanted so badly to believe otherwise that time. They started back toward home, but before they could get too far, Iris turned her head to See Cait Raymond emerging from the crowd to look at her, one final apology in her eyes. But she knew she’d never be able to accept it, her heart wouldn’t let her.

 

Nora Dawn had began to settle down after a warm bath and a nice dinner of rabbit pie and mustard greens, her favorite. The family remained agitated as the night wore on, afraid an officer might come for the girl. Neither Iris nor Barry would have put it past them. But they never came, and soon the night grew quiet, and the four of them huddled together, warm in Barry and Iris’s big bed.

“I’m truly sorry my darlin’” Barry said. Dawn clung to him, like his arms were the safest place in the world. Her spectacles were cracked, and they would have to have them repaired, but Iris didn’t want to go into town again. She wanted to be someplace else, where they wouldn’t think to hurt someone as precious as little Dawn, but she was beginning to think no such place existed.

“Remember,” Iris said, her voice cracking. Your poppa and I love you more than anything, you just remember that and hold onto it alright?”

“Yes momma,” Dawn said sadly.

“Next time I see that man Nora, I’m going to kick him real hard,” Joseph Donovan said.

Barry and Iris both laughed, although Iris hoped to God that it was a jest.

“How about I kick him hard enough for both of us?” Barry said. And they both nodded, smiles gracing their sweet faces once more. It wasn’t long before they all fell asleep, warm and safe together, dreaming dreams so much sweeter than what was real.

 

**Stay Tuned Folks**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes, the next chapter will be much happier for our little family than this one. I think I owe them that.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I should be updating Heart in a Cage, since I've been leaving you hanging forever with that one, but I'm so very close to the end with this, and the other story left on on a fairly positive note, so I would like to finish this story so that I can give my full attention to hunted WA and their telekinetic baby. In any case enjoy this extra long penultimate chapter. You've earned it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Bartholomew H. Allen, Central City, 1873**

_Dear Francisco,_

_I have been considering your generous offer for several days now. I am aware that you and Cynthia’s time in the country is rather limited, and that I can only leave you in suspense for so long. I will start by once again thanking you for considering me for this opportunity to join you on your voyage to England. Working with yourself and Julian Albert on designing what sounds like a truly remarkable telescope is comparable to the persistent dreams of my boyhood, and if circumstances were different I would not have hesitated for a moment._

_However, circumstances have changed considerably since you and I used to break bread in the fleeting moments of peace on the battlefield. While you have used your well-earned fortune traveling the world and seeking answers to its greatest mysteries, I have spent years trying to create a world in which I could belong, as both the lover of Iris West, and the father of our two beautiful children. While I have found fulfillment in other places; the classroom, books, and the fondest memories of family long lost to this world, it has been the family I have found for myself that has been my greatest treasure, my greatest victory._

_You offered me the world at the tip of a drafting pencil, and I found myself reluctant to immediately accept. What would become of Iris and the children were we to be uprooted from the only home we’ve all known together? The children have friends here, and family that cares for them dearly. Iris is employed in a position she has loved for many years, and every day comes closer to her dream of starting her own newspaper. We have been truly blessed, and yet, all of our love and all of our accomplishments could not keep a vicious man from attacking my precious Nora Dawn, instilling fear in her at a time and place she was meant to feel only the most carefree happiness._

_We attended a fair, and a wooden horse caught her eye, I imagine because it looked a great deal like her dearly departed Ophelia, who died last year of old age. Nora picked up the horse to purchase it, and the merchant grabbed her wrist tight enough to bruise, sent her to the dirty ground in tears, and broke her spectacles. I wanted to kill him then, I wanted to strangle his last breath from him, but I could not. No jury in all of the country would understand my predicament, and if I wound up imprisoned for my crime, my Iris and our children would be left without me._

_When I wrapped my beloved daughter's bruised wrist in a bandage, I began to think on all of the times she had been made to feel less than the remarkable girl she is, all of the times her brother has been forced to be a stronger man than you or I, although he is but a child. I thought about all of the anger inside of me having to let these things pass for the sake of my family, and I began to frighten myself. Perhaps there is no more perseverance inside of me, perhaps they feel the same._

_So I fear I can hesitate no longer. I don’t feel there is anywhere on this planet Iris and our children will be safe, where we can live without judgment. But together, as a family, there is a chance we can have the type of adventure Iris used to dream about. I imagine us on your fine ship, headed to England, a place Iris and my children have only ever encountered in stories. I imagine the sea air tangling their curls, and their delighted eyes taking in the endlessness of the sea and sky, I imagine them finally understanding just how big the world is, and that not all of it can be as wretched as they fear. So my answer is yes Francisco, provided Iris is amenable to the change, I would be delighted to accept a position on your team. I pray this makes it to you most expeditiously._

_Sincerely,_

_Bartholomew Henry Allen._

Barry sealed the letter with wax, and tucked it into his satchel. He would take it to the post the next day, after discussing it with Iris of course. He hadn’t told her about the letter his old partner in arms Francisco Ramon had sent him, but after the incident at the fair, Barry couldn’t keep it in much longer. Central City was not home, America was not home. Iris was home. Don and Dawn were home, and that was what mattered in the grand scheme.

Francisco had had quite the adventurous life after the war. He’d traveled to California to seek his fortune in Gold, which was where he met a beautiful prospector who would later become his wife. After finding his riches among the mines, he was able to pass himself as Italian scientist Francis Ramone and patent the gold digging apparatus he’d invented, nearly doubling his riches. After that, he and his wife traveled to Massachussetts, where he’d secured a fellowship from Harvard that allowed him to travel the world for his research in engineering for the purpose of environmental exploration. In his travels he’d met the brilliant Julian Albert of Oxford who hoped to build the world’s largest telescope, to be designed and built in England, then transported by ship to the arctic. The project would take years, but the team would be generously compensated, and Francisco wanted Barry. He could only hope that Iris’ sense of adventure hadn’t waned over the years.

After the morning’s classes, Barry met Iris in Wells’ office. The professor was away in National City, and Iris had stayed behind to grade papers and edit the materials he’d be using in lecture upon his return. With the two of them alone, Barry found himself unable to focus on anything but the contentment on her beautiful face. Could he tell her? Was it fair to so drastically change the life she’d worked so hard for? And for what, so he could live out his own dreams? His mind began to race, what would Iris do in England? Could she find work that fulfilled her, or would she merely be there as a wife? Marriage between a white man and a former slave was legal in England at least, although that may not have meant much, as there technically were no laws against it in many places around America either until two years back, when miscegenation was outlawed nationwide, before then there were no laws in Central City but those of the churches who considered their love to be an abomination, and would gladly use their secret against them if they were to so much as try. His thoughts began to carry him away, until Iris placed her hand on his and squeezed it lovingly.

“What are you so far away for?” she asked. He knew she only meant his temperament at the moment, still the question made him want to move closer, to meet her at the other side of the desk.

He pushed her chair back so he could stand in front of her, and she could look up at him as he cradled her warm cheek. She was every bit as pretty as she’d always been, every bit as kind and strong. He bent at the waist to kiss her, surprising her, but she didn’t pull back. She took his wrists in her hands and pulled him gently down until he found himself on his knees, as if in worship. Suddenly his mind was clouded, thoughts of England, and telescopes and cruel men at fairs swirling together and dissolving in his mind, leaving nothing else but Iris, and her mouth on his, and his hand traveling beneath her long skirts, touching the warmth there, making her shudder against him.

“This isn’t very respectful of us Mr. Allen,” she said, a breathy laugh beneath her voice.

“Nobody needs to know Mrs. Allen,” he said, before capturing her mouth again, pressing his fingers against her where the fabric of her underthings kept her cruelly shielded from his touch. The woman wore too many layers. He wanted to see her, to touch her. He wanted to be free with her, anywhere and everywhere, and when she pulled away, something inside pained him greatly.

“What is it?” he said, and she only looked at him a little sadly.

“You called me Mrs Allen,” she said.

“That’s who you are to me,” he said, cursing himself on the inside for reminding her again of who they were.

“You’re right,” she said, although he could tell she wanted to say more. He started to wonder again, if he could Marry Iris in England, if circumstances were just different enough there to allow that one simple but life-changing thing. But he couldn’t think of that now, he had to convince her to go first, and he still wasn’t sure whether it was right to do even that. So for the time allowed, he kissed her again, deeply, solidly, and took her against him. No matter where they were, she’d always be protected in his arms, always.

Later that night, when Barry and Iris laid side by side, still damp and trembling from the intensity of their lovemaking, the thought of leaving crossed his mind again. He’d meant to tell her in the office, so he could deliver the letter to post, but he’d become preoccupied by the taste of her mouth and the feel of her body against his, and perhaps his own reluctance. But it had to be addressed at some point, preferably before someone could hurt his children again.

“Iris?” he whispered in the near dark, and although her eyes were shut, she murmured in response.

“Do you ever think about leaving?”

At that she opened her eyes, and looked at him.

“Leaving where?”

“Central City, this house.”

“Why ever would I leave my house?” she teased, making his heart sink a little. “It’s the one place in the world that’s mine, where I feel safe.”

“But what about those stories you love, about seeing the world? Don’t you ever still think about that?”

She only shrugged. “They’re just stories Barry, and as much as I love them, I don’t need them anymore. I’m happy.”

“You are? All the time?”

“Nobody’s happy all the time.”

“But you deserve to be, and you deserve to see everything you used to dream about, you deserve that Iris,” he noticed his voice was getting quicker, louder, more desperate, and it wasn’t until now that he realized just how much he wanted to go, how much he needed to convince her.

“What is this about honey?” She said, shifting so that her body faced his. “Is this because of what happened at the fair?”

“I suppose in part.”

“Dawn is all right sweetheart, she was playing and laughing just today.”

“But how long until she stops being all right? How long before they become as angry as I am all of the time? Angrier in fact, I am only made to witness it, they live it every day as do you.”

She smiled at him, a warm but somewhat strained smile. “I know this isn’t just because of what happened, this has been our life for years Barry.”

“And maybe it’s time for a change, maybe it’s time to see what else there is.”

“Is that right?” she said, smirking, humoring him. She kissed the tip of his nose, then his lips. “And how should we go about doing that?” She kissed his mouth again, keeping him from answering, although he supposed she wasn’t expecting a real answer in the first place. When she set him free from her kiss, he rolled over to open the drawer in his night table, and found the letter he’d received from Francisco several days before. He swallowed hard in anticipation and fear as he gave it to her, and she knitted her brow in confusion as she began to read. He waited what felt like an eternity for her to finish, although she was as fast a reader as he was. As she read her face contorted in what looked like apprehension, then curiosity, before she finally set the letter down and sat up in bed, not bothering to shield her nudity from him after so many years.

“Is this what you want?” she said.

“It is.”

“And me, and the children?”

“He knows, his ship will accommodate all of us and then some.”

"And how long will we be away?”

"Years, possibly a decade.”

“And what about my brother?”

“He can keep the house, tend the grounds, care for Lightning in his last days.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We can’t leave Wally. My Pa has Cecile, he can care for Lightning and move back into the house, it’s larger than theirs.”

And he wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed as if Iris was considering it, more than considering it, making plans.

“Wally can build anything he puts his mind to, surely you can use his help,” she continued.

According to Francisco, Julian Albert wasn’t a man who paid much mind to inconsequential matters like one’s color. Albert was aware of Francisco’s indigenous heritage, as well as the background of Barry’s children. It was to be rather isolated work, if exorbitantly funded. If Wally could do the work assigned to him, being a part of Ramon’s team would be of great benefit. Barry tried not to show his excitement, she wasn’t saying yes, only weighing the options. Although he could see how very close she was in her eyes. And maybe he'd misjudged her earlier response, maybe she did see a life for them beyond the confines of the house they shared.

“But what about you?” He said, remembering the final caveat. You are the reason I hesitate. You have a life here, a life that you love.”

“I have a life that I tolerate, you’re what I love, you and the children. As long as I’m with the three of you, I’m home.”

It was possible that his heart had grown double in size, she was saying yes, he was sure of it. And suddenly his mind was racing. He’d find her work, perhaps also with Julian. Surely she could assist, be a valuable part of the team as well, with all she had learned of astronomy working under Wells. But she stopped his  thought in its tracks with her next statement.

“And HR Wells lives in Oxford,” she said. “Harrison’s twin, I’ve been far too busy these last few years to seek him out, but this could be a sign, that it’s time to print my book. Professor Wells said his brother could help. No, I am convinced, this _is_ a sign, it’s destiny."

“Destiny,” Barry said, near tears. The next moment he had Iris on her back again, a thunderous laugh escaping her lungs that was quieted by his lips. As he pulled away from her again, he repeated it.

“Destiny.”

The next morning, while Iris and the children were still sleeping soundly, there was a knock at the door. After a full night spent celebrating between his lover’s thighs, he found himself sore and barely able to pull himself out of bed. But the knocking didn’t subside, and Iris only stirred once to reposition herself against him. When the third knock came, he grunted loudly and stepped out of bed, replacing his clothes as he made his way out of the bedroom door.

He went downstairs and answered to find a man that he didn’t recognize on his doorstep. He was dressed in professional looking garments and had a satchel held at his side.

“Bartholomew Henry Allen?” he said

“Who's asking?" Barry said hesitantly, wondering just how this stranger knew where to find him, he was far from quick to offer information about his living arrangements.

“You are not an easy man to track down.”

“Is there something I can help you with?”

“Why yes,” he said. “I’m the executor Of Eobard Thawne’s estate. Now as you may know, he didn’t have much to his name after the plantation was seized many years ago, but according to this--"

The man was silent as he reached into his satchel, and Barry finally began to process his words. He wasn’t surprised that Eobard had died, in fact, he was surprised that it had taken him so long. He hadn’t thought about him much at all since he left him alone that day, determined to find Iris, and now, upon hearing his name again, he felt even less than he had that day.

The man at the door produced the will and began to skim it.

“As your uncle’s last living relative, you are entitled to all of his personal effects—

“I don’t want them,” Barry said shortly. “I don’t want anything.”

Clearly taken aback, the executor cleared his throat and continued.

“Well I’m also here to discuss funeral arrangements, if I can step inside for a moment—

“Do whatever you want with him, burn him, toss him into the ocean, I don’t care.”

The executor continued to look confused, by Barry’s blank expression, lack of sympathy, clearly it wasn’t something he was used to in his line of work. It wasn’t that Barry was still angry, he wasn’t, the only thing he felt was inconvenienced at having to leave Iris’ side to discuss a man who was less than a stranger to him.

“Are we finished?” Barry said, "I’d really like to go back inside and get a little more sleep."

“Of course Mr. Allen,” He reached into the satchel and pulled out an envelope. “but perhaps I should leave you with this letter, written by your uncle in his final days.”

“I don’t want that either,” Barry said, not even the least bit curious. If it was an apology, it was far too late, if it was more words of hatred and villainy, then Barry didn’t much care to read those either.

“Perhaps you are in shock and not understanding me Mr. Allen, your uncle is dead.”

Uncle Eobard was dead, his last natural tie to the country that had enslaved his beloved, was dead. Barry was free, and it didn’t matter, because he had truly been free the moment he found Iris again.

“Good,” Barry said, and shut the door.

**One Month Later**

The young family stood together at the train station with their baggage in tow, as much as they could bring onto the ship. Wally sat on top of a trunk full of his own belongings, while Joe, Cecile, and Harrison Wells prepared to bid them all farewell. Don and Dawn seemed both excited and sad to be leaving. It would be at least another year before they could sail home for a visit. They spent five minutes each hugging their grandfather, who hadn’t tried to convince them to stay, in spite of everything, he didn’t so much as ask. Deep down, they all knew that it was the right thing for all of them, that Joe was ready to settle into a comfortable life in the house he’d helped build with his bare hands. Finally America was home to him. But Barry, Iris, Wally and the children still had much searching to do, much exploring, learning and growing.

With Francisco due any moment, they exchanged long embraces and tearful goodbyes with their friends and family again. Wells would be fine without Iris, she’d taught Jefferson well, and the young man was excited to start as an apprentice at the college. Still, she would miss Wells greatly, and the respect and acceptance he offered her, so although it was a risk to embrace him in public, she did so quickly.

“Pa,” she said then, turning to Joe. “This is harder than I thought it’d be.”

“Don’t cry for this old man Iris, we’ll see each other soon. Until then Im’ma be keeping that ancient horse of yours on four legs.”

“Make sure to give him a sugar cube every day,” said Don. “And pat him on his mane.”

“And talk to him about Ophelia, he misses her,” Dawn said, grabbing Joe’s hand.

“Every day,” said Joe, starting to well up again.

“And don’t forget to write,” said Iris, at least once a week, “God knows I will.”

“I’m going to write you a letter as soon as I get home,” Joe promised.

Barry hadn’t been afraid of Joe in years, he hadn’t needed to be. Although he assumed the older man would always wonder what could have been had Iris found someone more suitable, Joe could no longer deny that Barry was part of the family, a steadfast father to his grandchildren, whom they both loved more than anything in the world, So when Barry promised to take care of them all, Joe seemed to have no trouble believing it.

As Wally said his goodbyes to Joe, Barry spotted Francisco Ramon walking toward them. He was a short, handsome man in his early thirties, around the same age as Iris and Barry. He had dark, wavy hair, round, friendly features and a jovial way about his step and his smile that Barry could scarcely remember from the war. They were all so serious back then. On Francisco’s arm was a woman whom Barry assumed was Cynthia, she was small, with Raven hair, a charming spray of freckles about her cheeks, and a certain steeliness behind the eyes.

“I am looking for a Miss Nora Allen,” said Francisco, not acknowledging the rest of them as he stopped on the platform. He had the same mild accent Barry remembered, one that could sound vaguely Italian to the untrained ear, but was actually accumulated from his childhood in Colombia, and the subsequent years spent in every corner of America and beyond.

“I’m Nora,” The small girl said shyly.

At that, Francisco unlinked his arm from his wife’s and got on one knee to be eye level with the little girl.

“I hear that you are in need of a small wooden horse,” He reached into the pocket of his jacket, and produced a carving of a horse, much to Dawn’s immediate delight, it looked much like the one from the fair, only made from a darker, richer wood, and polished to perfection.

“Thank you!” She said sweetly.

“Why don’t I get a gift?” Said Don, tugging slightly on his mother’s hand.

“Do not think I have forgotten you young man. Cynthia?”

Cynthia smiled, immediately melting the steel in her eyes, and spoke. Her accent was clearly American but hard to place. It was possible that she’d spent her whole life in California before meeting her husband. “For your first sea voyage, I present to you this compass,” she said, opening her gloved hand to reveal the beautiful bronze instrument. “So you will always know where you are going.”

Don smiled wide and thanked her, pleased with the gift.

“Iris West, you are even more beautiful than described," Francisco said, greeting her with a kiss on the hand. "I hope you have said your goodbyes to these fine people, the train will be leaving for the docks shortly."

They had said their goodbyes, but they couldn’t help saying them one more time before leaving Central City behind, eager to see all that was in front of them.

**The End**

**Stay tuned for the epilogue folks!**

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Bartholomew Henry Allen, Central City, 1918**

Barry was supposed to go first. That was the silent promise the universe made to him once he became hers. No matter how long he should live, Iris was supposed to live longer. So although she went at 79, after having lived many more happy years than despairing ones, Bartholomew Allen could not help the anguish that shook his bones at the thought of living his last days without her. Iris had been sick for some time, he’d seen it so clearly yet never gave his mind the chance to process it. She’d been getting thinner, and sleeping more during the day. He’d found himself having to carry her to bed most nights, something he was capable of in spite of his advanced age, and due in part to her frailty. She hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and neither had he. To speak it into the universe would have made it real. Yet still, it happened, a little over a week after Christmas he woke up next to Iris, to find that her warmth and her breath had left her in the night.

He’d picked her up, rocked her in his arms. His tears gathered in her silver curls as he pleaded for her to return to him. She could have been sleeping, as peaceful as she looked, an almost smile on her lips as if she were having a nice dream. She could have been sleeping yet he couldn’t wake her.

“Please my darlin’ please stay with me,” he said. But she’d already gone.

He was supposed to go first.

**Wally West, New York City, 1918**

He would drive all night if he had to. As soon as he'd received word from his niece and nephew that Iris had passed, he got into his car as quickly as a young man, and raced to find Jessica Wells at the Women’s Center. Jessica had been a dear friend of the family’s since their time in England so many years ago, and he knew that she would want to be one of the first to know.

Men weren’t allowed inside, especially not colored men, but it was difficult to pay too much mind to rules in his current state. There was no family with him in New York, only Jessica, she was the only one who could offer the consolation he’d need to make the drive to Central City. He tried to keep his eyes dry as he quietly entered. He’d wait for her to finish, because if he tried to talk at the moment nothing of any use would come out. Jessica stood at the front of the room, behind a podium, looking neat as a shoe buckle, her posture commanding in her sharply cut wool jacket.

“So, it’s decided,” Jessica said in her lovely patrician accent, laced with hints of her time in England. “We March on the ninth, any suggestions or concerns I can roll my eyes at?”

A young, brunette woman near the front of the room raised her hand, and Jessica nodded toward her to speak.

With Jessica’s permission, she stood and cleared her throat. “I for one believe we should have a male speaker, surely our fight for the vote will be taken more seriously if there are one or two men in our corner.”

“That is a preposterous idea Helen,” Jessica said. “Men do nothing but make everything about themselves, this is our fight.”

“But what about men like Westley Allen, isn't he a friend of yours?”

The hard lump in Wally’s throat grew more painful at the sound of the name. Iris had written five books under the name Westley Allen. And none of her readers had known who was really behind that part of her life’s work. Although after starting her own newspaper upon returning to Central City in 1887, she’d published 14 pamphlets and countless stories under her own name. Maybe now that she’d died, the record could be set straight that the mind behind Central City Picture News – one of the first to be openly run by a black woman— and the author of the books that had so touched the world, were one in the same.

“Surely you don’t mean that?” said a woman sitting near the center of the room “We don’t need to cloud our message with issues of race.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Helen said. “I do know my children and myself loved _The Voyage To Vincula_ , anyone who’s read that book knows it’s about suffrage. Don represents the government and Dawn represents women. Don freeing her is a metaphor for the government realizing that they need the voices of women.”

Wally nearly laughed at that, she couldn’t have been more wrong, although Iris had been rather subtle in her approach of framing a story about black freedom as a children’s adventure, she’d had to be.

“That story is about slavery,” The other woman said. “How vulgar of that man to write such a thing.”

“Well I disagree,” said Helen.  “It was published after abolition, there was nothing at all to still complain about then. And what about now? Blacks have the vote but we don’t? Is that what passes for justice?”

“You know there are some people who happen to be both?” Jessica said, her voice chilly.

“You know what I mean,” Helen said. “Why would a man of his talent write about such unnecessary matters?”

Wally didn’t become angry at these supposed crusaders for rights, speaking as if they had no understanding of the concept. He felt sorrier for them than anything. If only everyone could be as wise and open to new ideas as his sister had been, perhaps then they would have secured the vote long ago.

“Unnecessary?” Jessica said. “The only unnecessary thing I’m hearing right now are your limp protestations. No wonder you think we need men on our side, clearly you aren’t up to the task.”

Helen sank back into her seat, while the others began to argue among themselves, a continuation of the decades long back-and-forth surrounding his sister’s book. He remembered when she used to smile to herself whenever she’d overhear random strangers debating it

“Ladies, we’re getting off track here,” Said Jessica, banging her gavel. “That story is about slavery, hate to disappoint you Helen. In any case, Westley Allen is extremely reclusive, there’s no—

It was then that she noticed Wally standing at the back of the room. Her gaze locked on him through her half moon spectacles. He tried not to let the water gathering in his eyes spill onto his cheeks, even still, she seemed to know he hadn’t come for a happy reason at her first glance. Her chin wrinkled slightly with her sympathetic pout, and she slammed down the gavel again, so unexpectedly Wally noticed a few women flinching in their seats. “Meeting adjourned,” she said abruptly.

“But we have the room for another—

“ _Meeting adjourned_ ,” Jessica repeated more firmly, and the women began to reluctantly rise from their seats. As they made their way toward the exit, they seemed to all but collectively stop short at the sight of Wally, as if there were ropes about their waists that yanked them back before they could get within a few feet of him.

“Excuse me ladies,” He said, his voice strong despite the emotion choking him up. The crowd of women parted as he moved his way toward Jessica, who’d descended the podium to meet him.

“What has happened Wallace?” she said, as always, her voice was warmer and gentler when she addressed him, even moreso with him looking so distraught.

“Jessica, you know this man?” a blonde woman with a sour expression said next.

“Eleanor for God sake the meeting is over. Go home, all of you,” Jessica snapped.

They did as they were told after a few more moment’s pause. And the two old friends faced each other again. Finally the tears in Wally’s eyes fell, and she reached out a hand to wipe them away, first one then the other.

“It’s Iris,” He said, it was all he needed to say. “Will you come with me to Central City?”

“You needn’t even ask,” she took his hand and they left the women’s center together, paying no mind to the few prying stragglers left behind on the concrete walk outside. Wally led Jessica to the car, opening the passenger door for her.

“Please tell me we won’t be driving this contraption of yours all the way to Central City?” she said, her voice still sympathetically soft beneath her teasing, habit at that point.

Wally smiled at her weakly, “Best way to travel.”

As if guided by some sort of uncomfortable magnetism, Wally found his glance settling back on the whispering women witnessing him letting Jessica into his car, he leaned in a little closer to her. “I haven’t cost you your leadership status have I?”

She waved her hand dismissively “As if they’d last even a moment without me.”

Wally chuckled sadly, shut Jessica inside, and crossed the front to the car to his side. The both of them fastened their car goggles, Wally pulled the fingerless leather gloves over his cold hands, and he started his prized auto with a heavy, powerful rumble to take off toward Central City.

**Nora Allen-Ognats, Jump City, 1918**

Jeven stretched his arms toward the ceiling, his firm, taut muscles flexing beneath his shadow-black skin. Although nearly 50, he was every bit as handsome as he was the first day Nora laid eyes on him 25 years earlier in San Francisco. He’d been hammering a rooftop and she’d sprinted from her nearby apartment to complain about the noise. At the sound of her voice he’d stood atop the high building and looked down at her, shielding his eyes from the sun, and at that very moment, she knew that she wanted to paint him.

25 years later he was still her favorite subject, he and Jennifer of course, although their daughter wasn’t always good at sitting still. And at the moment, neither was Jeven.

“Would you stop fiddling?” she said as he continued to stretch.

“I didn’t make a move for two straight hours,” He said.

“Well lean into that impulse,” she said. Jeven was naked from the waist up, holding an unlit cigarette between two fingers that had a curvy trail of wafting smoke coming from it in the painting. She could tell that he couldn’t wait to smoke it.

“How about I go with another?” He said, setting down his cigarette and getting up from his seat to saunter toward her. The annoyance on her face was only partially real, and it melted completely when he bent to kiss her. She hastily set the paintbrush down on the pallet of blacks and browns and heavy pinks.

“Well I suppose I could use a break,” she giggled as he planted kisses on her neck and shoulders, his rough, strong hands going under her airy white nightdress. She dug her fingers, crusted over with dried paint, into his back, which was still firm and sculpted from years of building fine houses.

“Not too loud, Jenni’s still sleeping,” she whispered into his ear as he unbuckled his belt.

And as if the nine year old had heard her name called, she charged into the room a moment later, and Nora and her husband frantically settled themselves into less incriminating positions, although there was a chance Jennifer hadn’t seen them at all. The girl’s eyes were flooded with tears, and her parents immediately went to her side to find out what was wrong.

“Baby girl what’s the matter?” Jeven said, gathering the girl into his arms.

“Uncle Donovan is here,” she said, her voice a wet hiccup. “It’s Grandma.”

**Joseph “Donovan” Allen, Central City, 1918**

The loss of his mother was more of a blow than he thought it would be, although he knew it would be hard. They had been close all of his life. While Nora Dawn was the free spirit — foregoing college, marrying a laborer, not having a child until the age of 41, and going wherever her whims should take her, most recently Jump City, known for its many green hills and brilliant architecture— Don had been the sturdy one. He was a doctor, married to a schoolteacher, whom he’d had a child with at 28 years old. Donovan’s son Bart developed an interest in engineering early on, much like his uncle Wally, and the family of three never had lived more than a few miles away from Barry and Iris. Yet he knew the moment he received word of his mother’s passing, his twin would be equally devastated. She’d loved their mother fiercely, and admired her their whole lives. It was Iris in fact that inspired Dawn’s sense of independence.

Don told his little niece first, who’d sadly been the one to answer the door. He would have told the three of them together if the all too perceptive child hadn’t sensed the sadness on his face and that of his wife and demanded answers before she would budge. She’d sprinted up the stairs to tell them, and within minutes they were packed, ready to head back with him to Central City. Nora and Jenni had cried the whole time upon Jeven’s broad shoulders, while Don took his only comfort in his wife’s hand wrapped around his. Meloni was quiet, and shy, but her inner strength was palpable, and would be his only consolation during the fifty mile drive.

Along the way, Don thought of his father. Barry hadn’t spoken to anyone, hadn’t so much as left his room. Bart had volunteered to keep the older man company during Don's drive to retrieve Nora, but the gesture only meant so much with his grandfather intent on ignoring him

When they arrived at the old house in Central City, Bart answered the door for him. The young man was clearly despondent, but seemed to perk up somewhat when his beloved cousin Jenni launced herself into his arms.

“Hi there little bean,” Bart said, picking her up, letting her cry into his shoulder. “Don't cry now, it’s all right.”

“How is he?” Don said.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Bart said. “He still won’t leave his room.”

The families gathered around the door of the downstairs bedroom, and found that Bart’s warning had been correct. Barry was still closed inside, not responding to their knocking and pleading. They feared for a moment that the old man had followed his wife into the unknown, but when he finally responded with an unwelcoming grunt, they knew he was merely too heartbroken to move.

“Pa?” Nora said. Nora, always Barry’s favorite although he never would admit it out loud. Her voice was cracked and weak, but he must have heard it, because he answered with a slightly softer grunt. “Pa, can you open the door? We’re all here for you.”

Barry didn’t provide an answer, if he wouldn’t answer for Dawn there may have been no hope. The only one who may have succeeded besides her was Wally, seeing as he’d known him the longest, and had known Iris longer than even that, but he wasn’t due from New York for several hours.

“Please Dad,” said Don. “We all love you, we just want to see you, that’s all.”

Still nothing.

“Grandpa?” Bart said. Jenni was in his arms still, but he didn’t seem to mind the weight. “Please let us in, we’re worried for you.”

Barry responded with only silence. But the next person to try may have not been quite as easy to ignore. Jenni wiped her tears on Bart’s sleeve, and turned her face toward the door. “Papa,” she said, just one word in a voice thick with sadness. That was enough, because in the next moment, they heard the floor creaking under Barry’s feet, and the door unlock.

When Barry opened the door, Don could safely say that none of them had seen him look more low. His hair and beard were disheveled, his eyes were bloodshot, he clearly hadn’t bathed, and his feet were bare in spite of the unlit heater making the room nearly as frigid as outside. It was almost as if he were trying to make himself sick. Don noticed the bed, how Barry had the pillows arranged in the approximate shape of another person to lie next to. He’d lied next to Iris nearly every night for over fifty years, there would be no consoling the man, still, they had to try.

“My wife is gone,” he said. They didn’t respond, only went to hug him all at once. He was unmoving between them, but didn’t reject the show of affection. Once they were done holding him, they went to his bed. He sat heavily and they sat around him, letting him stay quiet for a moment.

“This isn’t fair to you,” Barry said. “I know you all loved her too. I wish I could say the things you’re supposed to say, but I can’t”

“Then don’t,” Nora, said, taking his liver spotted hand into hers. He squeezed back weakly. Jenni wriggled away from Bart next, and resettled herself into her grandpa’s lap. Barry didn’t even try to smile, but he put a hand on the little girl’s shoulder.

“That’s right,” Don said. “Just let us be here, that’s all we ask of you.”

“You don’t understand,” Barry said. “My whole life has been about Iris, about making her happy."

“You did,” Don said. “My mother had a beautiful life, by anyone’s standards she did. And a lot of that was because of you.”

“She was the best thing I’ve ever done with my life. I helped build The Albert Ramon Telescope, I became head of Sciences at Central City University, I’ve written books, I’ve worked with big important people, but none of that feels worth anything. I don’t even know who I am without her.”

“You’re our family old man,” Nora said.

“Iris used to call your great grandpa that,” Barry said.

“I know,” Nora said, laughing through her tears.

“Look, we’ll stay with you as long as you need,” Nora said. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah,” said Jeven. “It ain’t no problem at all, Jenni don’t have school again for a couple of weeks, we got money saved, we’d be happy to stay.”

“You’ve never been too good at staying,” Barry said to Nora.

“But I’ve always been great at change,” she responded, quick as ever.

Something close to a smile finally found Barry’s face, but disappeared nearly as quickly. “I’m gonna be a miserable bastard, I’m sorry in advance.”

“We know,” Nora said. “It’s all right.”

So they stayed, they stayed while Barry tried to understand his place in the world being one instead of two. Don and Nora knew about the nine years they spent apart when they were young, so it seemed almost poetic when it took Barry nine additional years to die after Iris. He’d wanted it to be quicker, they all knew it, they all knew that between the happy moments with his family –reading the morning paper with Don, sitting for Nora’s paintings, fishing with Bart, going on long rides in Wally’s car, reading to Jenni and telling her stories of his and Iris’s world travels— Barry was biding his time until he could find her again, and on one not too special day in the spring of 1927, he finally went, back where he belonged, back to his Iris.

**Iris West, Central City, 1918**

She would go that night, she felt it. She wouldn’t wake up the next morning and there was nothing to be done. She was content about it, she’d done everything she’d set out to do in life, she’d been more fortunate than so many born in her circumstances, and perhaps her story would live on to inspire others. She was ready, but she knew that Barry wasn’t ready to lose her, that perhaps he never would be. She’d stayed up as late as she could, sitting next to her husband by the fire, her tired head on his shoulder. Barry always lived with the thought that he needed her more than she needed him, but if only she could show him that it wasn’t true, that he’d been everything to her. He’d given her all of himself and asked for nothing in return. So she’d given him her last day, she’d made it a good one.

“Take me to bed,” she said when her eyes became too heavy, and he obeyed, gathering her up with some struggle and carrying her to the downstairs room where they’d moved once she’d taken ill. He laid her gently onto the pillows, tugged the blankets up around her chin, and went to light the heater, the very same he’d given to her all of those years ago. When he met her in bed again, he’d spent a few moments smiling down at her, tucking the covers around her a little bit more.

“Are you comfortable?” he’d said softly.

“Mmm hmm,” she responded.

“Are you warm?”

“Very.”

He leaned in to kiss her, not as chastely as he usually would just to say goodnight. It was deep, and lingering, as if part of him knew as well. When he pulled away, there was a smile on his face.

“Just as pretty as ever,” he said.

“And you’re every bit as handsome,” she pulled an arm free from under the covers and reached out to touch his face.

“The children seemed good over Christmas, didn’t they? And little Jenni’s gotten so big.”

“Yeah, she looks just like you,” he said. “Spitting image.”

He lied down next to her, placing an arm around her. She liked him holding her, it made it all feel a little easier, and harder at once. She wanted to tell him that she would be fine, that she would finally see her mother again, and her father, and everyone who’d died so tragically striving for more. She’d see them all, and she’d be looking down on him all the while. But she didn’t say it, because she knew he’d only fight her. She didn’t want their last night together to be a fight. She wanted it to be calm, and warm, and filled with only their love.

“Do you need anything my darlin’?” he said softly.

She smiled, deepening the lines around her eyes. “You know what I need,” she said.

And he did, he knew. He reached to the night stand to find the book, the same one he’d taken with him the first and last time he left her, her very favorite, that she could listen to now with only fondness and not the longing she used to feel. Like Edmond Dantes, she’d seen the world too, nearly every corner of it. She wanted for nothing, least of all adventure. Still, she wanted to go hearing his voice, ragged with age but still his, and never more familiar than when he read to her.

He opened the book to the middle, where they’d left off, but she shook her head.

“No, the end,” she said. “Please.”

It gave him a moment of pause, but she silently hoped that he wouldn’t ask why. He didn’t, he only obeyed, flipping to the last chapter and putting on his glasses to better see the words in the lamplight.

“It was toward six in the evening. A light yacht, pure and graceful of form, sailed swiftly along…”

As he read, she let her eyes flutter closed, let herself rest. The next day she’d be somewhere else, embarking on a new journey, and she knew without a doubt, that he’d one day find her there.

**That’s all folks!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this ending is quite sad, but I hope that it was a little bit happy too. And I hope in spite of the difficult subject matter, you all thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you all for the support, it means more to me than you'll ever know.


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